Boon
by LoweFantasy
Summary: Sequel to Slim, BUT CAN BE READ ON IT'S OWN. Despite being irritable and having to deal with an overprotective Naru, Mai's pregnancy is coming along without complications. But, of course, not everyone's pregnancy goes as nature intended it, and Naru can't hope to keep Mai from the spiritual world forever.
1. Prologue

Boon

By LoweFantsy

Prologue

I don't think it actually occurred to Naru that the thing giving me super human smell, making me puke at random moments, and rounding out my belly was actually a human being until he was kicked by it.

We had been sitting at the couch as we had made a habit to ever since our honeymoon, with me in between his legs, leaning against his chest, and with him holding a book out in front of us to read. I was only six months along, and was holding it pretty well, so I could still fit between his legs.

"What was that?"

"He just kicked you," I said, having felt it. Baby kicks were a lot like bowel movements—or tiny fists and heels jerking around in essentially a giant blister created by a malicious uterus.

"Kicked me?" He said it as though he could imagine a legless man kicking him with more ease.

I swallowed my mouthful of tea—a preggy safe herbal brand—and rolled my eyes. "Yes. It was against your thigh, wasn't it?"

"Isn't it supposed to be the size of mango?"

Yeah, I'd gotten this app on my phone that told you the size of your baby in relation to fruit and made sure to update Naru whenever our baby changed fruits, mostly because he told me not to. "More like a papaya, I suppose, but yes, now will you finish so we can turn the page already? And it's a 'he,' you stupid scientist. Calling your own son an 'it'."

I had been finding every opportunity I could to say the word 'son' in hopes it would make Naru act, well…more excited, or at least more fatherly. So far he had only managed to treat me as though I had an illness and couldn't take care of myself.

Naru didn't say anything, nor did he turn the page. Instead he pressed his thigh against the side of my waist. I was about to tug the page out from under his thumb anyways, but then I realized he was holding his breath and stopped myself.

A little limb kicked out again. Naru flinched.

"Doesn't that hurt?"

"It does pinch a little with you squeezing your leg on me like that."

His leg moved back. "Those do not feel like arms as thick as my pinky."

"Well, maybe your baby's especially strong," I said. The only thing I was amazed at was how much the little bugger moved at 24 weeks. Weren't they supposed to be asleep most of the time? I sure wish I could sleep all the time, nowadays.

Naru did turn the page after that, but it soon became apparent that his attention was distracted as more little jabs came up and around, moving to his other leg pressed between me and the couch. A smile jerked at the corner of my mouth as Naru's hand on the book dropped to tentively reach his fingers around my round, but still modest stomach to where the assault on his leg was occurring.

Just as sudden as it had begun, it stopped. I almost laughed as Naru's fingers searched the side of my stomach. My irritation (something always close to the surface nowadays) at having my book interrupted melted away and a bubble of content happiness inflated beneath my ribs.

"Where'd he go?" he finally asked. Was that a hint of disappointment I heard?

"I think he fell back asleep," I said, unable to hide my amusement.

We did get back to active reading after that, but from then on whenever he had a chance to do it as naturally as possible, he'd spread a hand over my stomach, waiting for the little bump against his fingers once more. He did let off on treating me like I had an illness. However, the feeling that the only reason he let me come to the office anymore was so he could keep me in his sights increased, no matter how much essential paperwork I did. He was still ever cool, arrogant, and aloof, but I wasn't the only one who noticed how much more jumpy and protective he'd become. Whenever he was called out to inspect a site in person, he would leave Lin behind with me like some grumpy, taciturn babysitter. Ayako, sensing great marital strife about to be inflicted by the grouchy pregnant lady, offered to watch me instead, but even that took some convincing and high emotions. Naru seemed to believe Lin was more capable than Ayako. Whether that was true or not wasn't the problem. I could still walk, talk, and do everything that a normal human being could, and my fierce sense of independence was being infringed on. After I refused to let him near enough to touch or hug me(or more like feel around for baby kicks, not like he'd ever say that out loud), he conceded.

So, really, it had been building up to this point for a long time. On the day of my 32 week check up, I left the house before Ayako had showed up and made my way to the bus stop by myself. It just further powered my rebelliousness that I made it the whole way without waddling or wincing or needing to sit down to take a breather like everyone seemed to be expecting me to. As the bus pulled up, I think I might have scared more than a few people with the look on my face, because I was given a wide berth. A nice business man even let me have his seat. At least I looked pregnant enough for that. Up until then I'd just looked fat, if anything. At least to me it did, no one else said so, but then who would?

I was still savoring my sweet delicious freedom when I walked through the door of the doctor's office with my satchel slung over my shoulder. A small netbook was inside, along with some other essentials. I took every boring moment I could to work on my books, or, at least, I liked to think I did. Of course I didn't watch reruns of _Columbo_ or real crime documentaries.

I checked in at the desk and found a seat next to another young woman about my age. She was rather plain, much as I saw myself, with short cropped hair and a purple striped shirt with jeans and sneakers. As she met my eyes as I sat down, I instantly relaxed, feeling I had found someone similar to myself.

"Hey," I said, quietly, as one often is in a doctor's reception area.

She met my smile with a small one of her own. It moved her face enough to tell me that if she ever smiled full on, it would be brilliantly beautiful. One of those transforming smiles, you know?

I saw her eyes flick down to my stomach and back up as I got out my phone to finally address Ayako's panicked texts. "How far along are you?"

"32 weeks." I said, eyes to my phone. "Though I have a sneaky suspicion I might be further than that with how strong he is. What are you here for? If you don't mind me asking."

She blinked fast, as though caught off guard by the question, and looked towards the door the nurses called out of to bring patients back. "Oh, I'm not sure yet."

"Just been feeling off?" I asked, having heard a lot of pregnancy stories that started out that way.

"Yeah." She tapped her fingers against her knees and looked back to me. "Are you excited?"

I snorted. "Is the sky blue? Though at this point I'm just eager for it to be over. My husband's been treating me like a cripple."

"Oh. That's not good."

"Not like that. He's not abusing me or anything." I gave my phone a bit more of a violent jab than I needed to and stuffed it back in my satchel. "Just being super irritating. Like I'll keel over and die and birth a baby at once if I'm not watched like a hawk."

The little shy smile was back to her face. "It sounds like he really loves you, at least. It's nerve-racking for guys, you know. There isn't anything they can really do to actively help in taking care of the baby and they end up having to sit on the side feeling powerless while you're suffering to do it all yourself. I hear those kinds of guys are the best to have once the baby is born, because they really throw themselves in to helping out."

My initial judgment of her as being someone I might like warmed. There was something about the breathy sound of her voice that I couldn't help but be fond of. It made all her words sound as though she weren't really sure she was there at all, but somewhere high in the clouds, dreaming or sleeping among all the fluffiness.

I heard my phone vibrate and turned to glance into my satchel without taking it out and noticed, out of the corner of my eye, that the receptionist and a few other women in the waiting room were giving me very odd looks. They quickly looked away when they thought I saw, except for the receptionist. She just cocked her head, frowned, and then ducked away into the back. Biting my lip, I rechecked that I was wearing all the essentials and felt my face.

"Hey, is there something weird on my face? Everyone's staring at me like—" I turned back towards my companion.

Except she wasn't there. I hadn't heard a rustle of jeans or felt any brush of air. Only a large window and more chairs were on the side of the room, with nowhere to hide, and she would have had to walk in front of me to go into the doctor's office or out of the reception room into the rest of the building.

Hot with a full on body blush, I covered my face and waited for my name to be called.

 _Well,_ I thought. _That's a first._


	2. Cravings and Secrets

**To the guest reviewer who sent me the 'fan mail' in his review, the only thing I'm offended by is that you assume I don't care what you think or that your reviews are a waste of time. Wherever did you get that idea? O.o And as to when my book will be published-I've already published two books, silly. Look on my profile for info on that.**

 **On a more important note, I wanted to hear your guy's opinion on something: would you care for an audiobook version of my fanfictions? I got a pretty sweet recording set up and I'm actually not that bad at reading out loud. I got loads of practice in reading to my 10 younger siblings and my husband. I could do it as a youtube channel or a free recording upload thingy on my blog or whatever.**

 **Let me know what you think!**

Chapter 1

 _"Against my natural habits, I begin my narrative with myself. In the scientific community, it is highly discouraged to use the first person in reports or records, as it increases the likelihood of corrupting the data with personal bias, which can get in the way of the most pure of truths. My wife, however, informs me that, in regards to narrative stories, if I were to write as I usually do it would not only intimidate readers, but elicit a general dislike among them, especially since a majority of our readers will be in the teenage and young adult bracket._

 _Personally, I think the youth of today could do with a wider vocabulary and an opportunity to gain a higher reading level. But, as I am not here to teach anyone, but tell a simple story, I will do my best to follow my wife's advice."_

 _-_ Oliver Davis in _Cumin,_ under a different name.

"Don't tell Naru."

Ayako, who had just devolved from her irritation of not being kept in the loop that I intended to go to the doctor's by myself, snorted.

"Like I wanted to. The squirts become such an ass nowadays. You know, I would have let you go by yourself if you had just told me. Would have saved me the time it took driving over."

"Yeah, but Naru's got this second sense for lies." I gave her my best apologetic smile over our lunch. "But I still need you to swear you won't tell him."

"About the ghost or your excursion into freedom?"

"Both."

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. It's not like she tried to possess you or anything. Weird that you didn't even notice she was dead."

"Weird that I saw her at all." I scooped a fry into my strawberry milkshake and savored it. Seriously, satisfying pregnancy cravings was nigh orgasmic-sorry, it's the only word I could think of to best describe it.

"True. You've caught glimpses, but mostly it was in your dreams, right?"

"Yeah. I don't think I've ever actually talked to a ghost face to face while I was conscious. Isn't that more Masako's thing?"

"Probably." She wrinkled her nose as I dipped another fry. "Ugh, that's disgusting. Why are you doing that?"

"Baby," I said, looking up into my eyelids in pleasure. It wasn't fries and ice cream I had craved specifically, but there had been a rather persistent gnawing for a certain degree of salty and sweet that the milkshake and fries hit perfectly.

"I wonder if it has to do with the hormones rather than the training," said Ayako, who had been in half awe, half humor of what pregnancy was doing to me. She herself didn't ever want to be pregnant, which was probably the only thing stopping her and Monk from getting hitched. Takigawa wanted his own horde.

"Maybe both. Either way, I think I'll be looking over the obituaries. Think you could get the mortuary list from your parent's hospital for me?"

"What? You're actually going to look into this?"

"Well, she's still around, isn't she? And it was hard enough convincing my doctor's office I wasn't having some sort of preggy-lady-mental-melt down let alone to start asking them if any of their patients had died recently."

"Not to mention maybe illegal," said Ayako with a nod. "I'll see what I can do." She eyed my shake and tentatively dipped the tip of her own fry into it. She took the smallest bite possible and ran her tongue over it. Her eyes widened. "Hey, this actually isn't so bad."

"Strawberry milkshakes make everything good. Within reason." I let my eyelids flutter again as I swallowed another mouthful of salty-sweet goodness. That particular craving had been making my food taste nasty for the past three days. It was heaven to be able to eat without feeling like I was chewing cardboard.

As a buzzer went off in the kitchen behind the McDonalds counter, Ayako took a bigger scoop of milkshake on her fry. "So, you need pictures? That description of her is pretty generic."

"Right? It should be a requirement for everyone to dye their hair crazy colors in Japan. Would certainly make my job easier."

"You could always just let Naru do this-" she snapped her jaw closed at my ferocious look.

I stabbed a fry in her direction like a sword. "I thought you were on my side."

"I am! I just don't look forward to him being even more of a tight ass than he is now if he finds out."

"Which is why he won't." I withdrew the fry and ate it in one gulp. "Seriously, if this is how he's going to be with every pregnancy, Eugene will be the last kid we have."

"Either way, it's going to be pretty hard for me to get you a list of pictures of who has died recently. Privacy policies only allow due reason, like murder crimes and disease bureus, access to that stuff. Even families have a hard time getting to see your dead." She leaned her chin on her hand as she watched a rather slick looking red Mercedes pull into the lot. "If you ask me, I think you should go back to the office and try to talk to her again. It would be easier and more legal, that's for sure."

"Which I would love to do if it weren't for the fact being pregnant makes everyone afraid you're going insane."

"Ugh, what's with this vendetta you think everyone has with pregnant women? You're not even around people that often to say that."

"Fine. People think you're crazy if you talk to thin air. What do you suppose we say to everyone in the office? 'Excuse me, I'm going to talk to a ghost none of you can see, if you all would just continue on with your business and not freak out.'"

Ayako turned her face to me and grinned. Her reflection in the window glittered with the earring peeping out from her hair on that side.

"I think with the right costumes...yeah. Or we could just call Masako-"

"I am NOT calling Masako." The message had been loud and clear that we could not be friends when she didn't show up at my wedding. Not to mention she had been called once or twice by Naru to help him out with a case or two since he didn't have a medium on hand to work with, a.k.a, me.

Ugh, great, now that that folder of my life had been re-opened, I'd be a monster for the rest of the day, I just knew it.

Ayako looked like she knew it too, for instant regret turned down the corners of her mouth. "Like I said. I have no problem going behind Naru's back. So, anyways, costumes. Monk and I are pretty well known in the area, so we're covered. So we'll just dress you in a priestess kimono and go right in."

"Don't you need to call ahead of time?" Great, my forehead was already starting to hurt from glaring-or fighting to hold back tears. That was another problem with the Masako deal. But, on the upside, I'd gotten use to talking over my swinging emotions.

"Yeah, but that should only take a minute or so."

"Can we trust Monk to keep it a secret?"

"Oh yeah. He'd do anything for his little 'Mai-chan.'" Ayako rolled her eyes again, a favorite expression of hers. "When do you want to do this?"

"Well, since I don't have a life," I took a long drag on my strawberry milkshake to wash the taste of grease and salt away. "Whenever you got an opening."

"Speaking of which, when's the boss coming back?"

"Tonight." I glanced at my watch. "Sometime around six. Want to go see a movie?"

"Oh, gawd yes. Please. The new Avengers movie is in and I have a seriously die-hard crush on Thor's pecs."

I couldn't tell the difference between any of their pecs, but, then, I was only really sexually attracted to the one person I actually had sex with, so, whatever.

"Then here's the office number." I tossed her my phone. "Let's set a date for our ghost and do this. It's been way too long."

Ayako mirrored my grin as she took out her own phone and to dial the number on mine. "It has, hasn't it?"


	3. Hormones or Not, Emotions Are Real

**YO! I got an Easter present for you all that I set up last month. ^.^ For today up until the 18th (so the next five days), both my published books are FREE! :D I love you guys so much! I'm so honored to have your time to read my stories, so please enjoy the best gift I can give with this extra update of Boon and my free books.**

 **For where to find them, just check out my profile! For all you non-fanfiction users, just click on my username. That should take you there.**

Chapter 2

" _The reason for giving my side of the story is because I think I can give a valuable contribution to my wife's work. Also, I can't say I like the idea of my children only hearing her voice when they read about the career and adventures of their parents. The idea is oddly...unbalanced in my thoughts. I am not against her being the one to tell about us, nor do I think she isn't fully capable of giving a reliable, intelligent account. After all, I could not have married anyone I considered inferior to my own intellect. But I can't help but be concerned that if she gained the monopoly over telling our story there'd be nothing left for me to do as a father. After all, isn't parenting simply passing on our own stories? Our own fables, our own morality tales, our own stories of choices and consequence along with those of our forefathers?_

 _And if you accuse me of leaving out the nurturing and love involved with raising a child, you mistake me. No story reaches the heart of an individual without some degree of love and earnestness on the author's part, and the stories I will tell them I want to reach the very core of their being."_

 _-_ Oliver Davis in _Plain_ , under a different name.

The moment Naru was home he proceeded to drag me into the shower, where the way he held me made me feel instant guilt. His skin had been clammy before the hot water warmed and washed away the sweat. Love threatened to strangle me when I noted that he didn't feel safe showing weakness until he had locked our front door, the bathroom door, and then essentially hid with me naked in the shower.

Almost as though sensing the distress of his father, little Eugene kicked out at the hand that rested on my belly. I felt Naru's smile by the slight twitch of his ear against my neck, as he had draped his head over my shoulder.

"Bad case?" I asked.

"No. It was very productive. I'll be able to another case to my thesis off the data I got." Which he'd also be showing me extensively after we got out, if my predictions proved right. I had always loved a good ghost story, and he was always more than delighted to tell me one, even if he still sounded like a recording of a textbook as he did so.

"Then why are you like this?"

He didn't answer at first. Eugene did some more squirming beneath Naru's hand before somersaulting to the other side of the womb to continue his assault on some more unsuspecting target, like one of my kidneys.

"There was a ghost," he started. "But it wasn't the client's home. The haunting the client had been complaining about had actually been their daughter's low level of ESP. No. The ghost was in the apartment below...a ubume."

For once in my life, I didn't have to ask Naru what kind of ghost that was.

"That's the ghost of a woman who died in childbirth, right?" I said excited, not thinking to tone it down before the full impact of them hit my overly protective husband's ears.

Sure enough, his fingers twitched and I felt his shoulders do that slight hunch up from behind my own. One of the signs of his fear.

"The woman in the apartment below was pregnant," he said. "The only reason I knew there was a ghost there at all was because she came out one night and started banging about on the van. Said there was a naked woman with her lower half covered in blood appearing at the foot of her bed, wailing 'be born! be born!'"

"That's not creepy at all."

He squeezed me. "She went into preterm labor that same night."

"Oh my gosh, is she okay? The baby?"

He shrugged. "I found out after the fact, so I'm not sure. I know her baby was born just a little over a micro premie. Chances aren't good. There was no warning."

My first instinct was to twist around and hold him in my arms, but since my belly would have made it more of a me pulling Naru into an arch over me than a warm embrace, I settled for rubbing his arms and hands about me.

"That isn't going to happen to me," I said.

"I know that. I was just unnerved, I suppose. I'll be fine."

"That a boy."

Something in me started shouting that I should tell him about the ghost girl in the doctor's office. But then an equally loud voice replayed how incredibly pent up I'd felt over the past few months and how much I'd regret it if Naru and I got into a huge fight when he tried to stop me from just TALKING to her. Not every haunting was a huge life or death thing, you know. Most weren't. Plenty were just talking to the ghosts and urging them on, like Masako did.

I had a mini war in my mind to stop the wave of emotional turmoil that thinking her name brought. I was not about to open up that folder the first few minutes he was home, especially with him like this. I was pregnant, not stupid, though Ayako would argue otherwise.

"How did the doctor's visit go? Anything happen while I was gone?" He reached around me for the shampoo, keeping one hand splayed to the side of my belly, where Eugene straightened in a big, horizontal stretch.

"Doc says everything's looking great. It was boring, as usual, though I'm getting ready to send out _Cumin_ to your mom so I need your part of the story if you still insist on being in it. "

"Finished it while I was out, actually."

"On the job? Tich tich, Oli-kins, we can't have that."

He groaned. "I thought I said no Oli-kins."

"You _asked_. I declined your petition. Besides, I only use it in certain circumstances when we're alone and naked and teasing. You'll always be Naru to me."

He sighed, but let go of me without complaint so he could lather his hair properly. We washed, he told me further details of the case until his mood picked up enough to unstick from me. Afterwards, we fell into our comfortable routine of any night by brewing some warm, calming tea, curled up on the sofa, and read a few pages of a book before turning in for the night.

Also with every night, Naru waited patiently for me to make my best attempt to be comfortable before snaking his arm about me and scooping me in close to him. His breath tickled against the back of my scalp.

"It's so good to be home," he all but moaned.

And, since I figured I had waited long enough, I finally indulged my darker paranoia.

"Masako wasn't there...was she?"

Though his body against me remained as relaxed as ever, I thought I could sense a certain tension come over him.

"No. And for the last time, nothing has or is going to happen between the two of us. I will not go over this tonight."

But I twisted about, unsetting his arm, a desperation to glean something from him to squash the fear in me for good grasping at my chest like claws. "If you just let me come with you when you needed a medium, this wouldn't be a problem-I swear to-"

The words left me. In the dim created by the digital clock and the streetlight sneaking through the side of the blinds, I could just make out his dark, wide-eyed, severe glare. The tension was definitely there now.

"We are not having this talk," he said lowly, dangerously.

I swallowed a closed mouth scream. "Don't you care about what I feel? Do you have any idea what it's like being stuck here-you're so controlling?!"

"Controlling? All I've done is hold to the deal we both agreed on! For how often you mention feelings, I don't think mine were ever brought into the equation. I don't understand where this paranoia about Masako is coming from, I've only had to call her in twice and she was there for an hour at most."

"Like I could explain it!" We had already pulled away from each other, but now I could feel the edge of the bed at my back. I threw my arm over my eyes as I could feel rebellious tears flowing to the surface. Stupid, stupid preggy-mones. "Naru, I just...haven't I already said it all before?" How he was beautiful, I was plain and pregnant and fat and hormonal, and Masako was gorgeous and not pregnant or crazy with said pregnancy. Hell, just look at me now, causing a fight right when he had gotten comfortable. Who'd want to be with me? I didn't even want to be with me.

"And I've already told you you're being stupid. It's insulting how shallow you seem to think I've become." A fwoof of blankets landed in my face, followed by a creak of bedsprings. "I'll be on the couch."

I croaked as a sob, a grunt, and a protest all tried to get out of a throat that didn't want to work anyways. The door let out a snap of finality behind him.

Closing my mouth against the stupid broil of emotions I did not want to be feeling, I grabbed his pillow and smashed it over my face, letting out a low, quiet, open mouth sob into it.

 **To that random unhappy guest reviewer:**

 _Dear Unhappy Reader,_

 _You are very right. I am using the wrong social platform to announce sequel updates and ask questions like whether an audiobook would be appreciated. I guess I am spamming by using updates to reach my audience concerning other books and questions. No, I do not get it to gain more popularity or views or reviews. I don't feel that that is necessary. I honestly just wanted to know if anyone would be interested. However, I did look at it as an easy way to reach my audience because I use most of my free time to write rather than to market (and even the most simplest ways of marketing often require money to get anywhere), and if you have researched how to market your own book as well, you would also know it takes, well, a LOT of time and money. My free time is gleaned whenever I can find someone to watch my toddler son or he takes a rare nap._

 _You are also right that I am insecure. I have a bachelor's degree in writing, diligently write thousands of words a day, do what marketing I can do for absolutely free and with no time on hand, listen to podcasts and audiobooks on writing and publishing (and other books), send out hundreds of query letters for each of my books that I finish revising and rewriting, and have completed upwards to 25 novels…and yet my husband is gone before dawn and back home at nine at night going to school full time and working full time and I'm living on food stamps and the welfare of family so that I can be home for my son…so we can just make it by. I'm the one with the bachelor's degree, I'm the one who works so, so hard, I'm the one who spares every extra moment she can get on writing and getting better at my career, and what do I have to show for it? Two self-published books and a fanfiction following._

 _Yes. You are right. And I will stop updating chapters with only author's notes or announcements and no content. It's against the rules anyways, apparently. Teach me to skim over the rules, right? I apologize for annoying you. It is the very last thing I ever want to do. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and your irritation. I will leave your review up, as angry as it is, because it is true and I appreciate the time you spent to write it. I will learn from it and work on becoming better, and most importantly, more sincere._

 _Sincerely,_

 _LoweFantasy_

 _p.s. Please stop going from one story to the next to insult me and yell the same thing over and over. I heard you the first time and you're losing dignity and respectability by behaving that way._


	4. Why It's Hard to Be Charitable

**Tomorrow is the last day to get your free copy of my books. :) Non-fanfiction ones, that is. Just google T.S. Lowe on Amazon. Their titles are "Erase Me" and "Out of Duat." And I'd foam and worship you if you'd leave a review telling me what you think-good or bad. Unless you don't like foam, that is. But, anyways, here's the usual Monday chapter! Hope you guys enjoy!**

Chapter 3

" _What I find most curious about the study of the paranormal is how psychic energy, religion, psychology, and half a dozen other sciences intertwine to paint a picture of the world as it really is, unaffected by what man 'believes' it is-and yet directly molded by said belief. The more I study this paradox, the more I find myself coming back to simple the truths I had taken for granted; the ones even little children understand. Good and bad. Light and dark. Nice and mean. Sad and happy._

 _The one thing that remains unanswered by logic, however, is why. Why bother living this life at all if it comes to naught in the afterlife? If reincarnation is true, why even bother? Is some coma-like happiness, where we drift along without change or taste or personality for the rest of eternity, really our end goal? I, like many who have seen the hardships of mankind, ask what is the purpose of our hurting so much? And honestly, I don't accept the popular belief that life is so wonderful and exists because there is death. It reeks too much of sentimentality and aches for common sense. Tell a man who is in mental, emotional, and physical turmoil nigh unto death that he can appreciate being alive and all the rest of that pretty philosophy and see how much good it does him._

 _Because that's what life and death is: suffering. Anyone who tells you otherwise are most likely quoting a movie, and I've already gone into great depth about just how reliable the media is._

-Olive Davis in _Holy_ , under a different name

Ayako couldn't get enough of me in one of her priestess outfits.

"It brings out your baby belly so nice!" she squealed.

I looked into the mirror and did not feel the same. I thought I looked like a white and red Japanese garden gnome with a beer paunch. But, you know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Not to mention I was preoccupied with tending to my guilt monster who had told a morose, but repentant and sleepy Naru that I was going out to see a movie with Ayako and Takigawa. The two of us had made up over the weekend, though it wasn't so much as making up as him and I begging the other for forgiveness and ending up in a happy, cuddly bunch on the couch with a book.

Back in Ayako's bedroom (she surprisingly didn't live in a mansion, but a normal two room flat), Monk was all pink cheeked merriness as well. "And there won't be a thing to worry about, Mai-chan. Bou-san will keep you safe."

"I am trained in protection now," I said for the up tenth time. He didn't seem to care, as he too was giddy with pleasure at how much interest Ayako was showing in my pregnancy. He wanted the self-produced horde, after all, remember?

Once Ayako had taken her pictures and Monk had said all his poorly hidden hints/encouragements, we loaded into his car and headed to our appointment with the doctor's office. I felt only super stupid and flashy when I walked into the quiet office with my decked out spiritualist friends and attracted the eye of everyone in the room.

"Don't mind us, folks. Just doing a little exorcism."

Two of the three women, one of which had two boys hanging off her elbows, perked up with interest. They got to have a source of entertainment while they waited. One woman, however, stiffened.

"Is it dangerous?" she asked, sounding more angry and ready to roll out the fury than scared.

"Completely harmless," I said quickly. "We're just helping a wondering spirit move on. She's really helpless."

Out of the corner of my eye I thought I could see the girl at the reception counter roll her eyes and look back at her computer monitor. Always nice to have a fan.

Despite my reassurances, the woman took a seat as far as she could as I approached the chair I had sat a day or so before. I tried not to meet anyone's eyes as I relaxed my mind's eye as my trainer had instructed. Once I had pushed aside the guilt monster and the heat from all those watching, I found my mindset of the day before. The rebellion, the fierce sense of independence, the cocky, childish triumph. The fabric of Monk's robes hushed to me as he took a position next to me.

When I opened my eyes she was there again, plain, in a striped shirt and jeans, not even glancing towards us in all our getup. The spiritual plane, after all, was based off of impressions and memories of the soul itself.

I clenched my hands in my lap. "Hello again."

The girl glanced over at me. "Oh. Hey. Did you go somewhere?"

"Yeah, I did."

"Wow. I must be out of it. I didn't sleep the best the night before, maybe that's it." She gave a dry sort of straight mouthed smile that didn't reach her eyes.

I started picking out details I had missed before: the dark circles under her eyes, the pencil behind her ear, and some black lines peeking out from the collar of her shirt where a tattoo ducked out of sight.

"That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about," I said, my hands starting to sweat. I tried to be cool and gentle as I had heard Masako do it, but I could hear my own nerves in my voice. The women across the room were staring on, and one of the little boys had started to laugh. "That I went somewhere, not that you didn't sleep well. It wasn't just for a few moments, it was for a few days that I left. You're not just out of it. Y-You're dead."

She didn't really react as I thought she would. She didn't flinch or stare, or even raise her brow in disbelief. She did sort of chuckle, like people often did when something wasn't funny, but they knew it was polite to laugh anyways.

Across the room, the mother had quited the younger boy and was glaring at the older. A nurse came out and called her name, and I noticed she very poorly hid her interest in what was going on.

"Why are you telling me that? Is it a joke? What's the punchline?" said the girl.

"There isn't any punchline," I said, as gently as I could. No one had taught me how to convince someone they were dead. "Look around. Tell me what you see."

"Why?"

"The spiritual plane is built off your impression of the world. If you look closely you'll start to see inconsistencies or just...strange stuff."

She glanced around, much as a bored woman would to play along with a stranger. "The doctor's office. Some ugly fake plant. The receptionist desk." She stopped, hesitating. "Wait, where is everyone?"

"Oh, there's people here, trust me."

But she ignored me, getting up and walking to the front desk. "Hello? Miss?" She leaned over it, oblivious to how close her head came to nearly bashing into the head of the receptionist, who noticed nothing, even as the ghost girl's short hair brushed across her own. "Doctor?"

I waited, watching her as she passed about the room, doing my best not to panic when she faded momentarily just to reappear on the chair next to me, staring at her lap with her head resting on the palm of her hand as though nothing had happened.

"Hey," I said, softly. "Remember me?"

This time, when she glanced over, she jumped. "Wait, I just, where did I..."

"You're dead," I said again, patiently. "Time isn't relevant on the spiritual plane. It's easy to lose track of."

"This isn't funny." Her arms had gone tense and her expression hard. The softness of friendliness had gone from her eyes. "I'd appreciate it if you stopped talking to me."

"I'm trying to help you. Look, if you don't pass over, eventually you'll...be..."

But, in a blink, she had simply vanished, as though she had never been there in the first place. I tried several more times to clear my mind and find her again, but nothing appeared to me. I ran my hands down my face with a groan.

"Shall I go with an old fashion purification?" asked Monk, lifting up his beads.

"Might as well," I said. I then made the mistake of glancing over at the still waiting women. The skeptical one had a look of half disgust, half amusement on her face that made my guts clench. As though sensing this, Eugene squirmed, pushing his head against the edge of my hip.

"Alrighty then. Step aside." Monk cracked his knuckles and took a stance in front of the empty chair as I stood and stepped away.

"I don't mean to sound impolite," said the receptionist suddenly. "But when might you be finished? The doctor would rather you not unnerve his patients."

"This should only take a few minutes," said Monk with his best, charming smile.

An exorcism later, Takigawa, Ayako, and I were dressed out our gear and at a ramen shop on Eugene's call. I had an extra egg, tofu and green onion bowl of ramen, which I slurped with much gusto. Oh man, the saltiness, the texture of the noodles, had ramen always been this good? How could anyone eat anything else? Wait, didn't I hate this stuff? Well, not hate, but when you lived on your own you sure got tired of this sort of thing.

"Hopefully she's not around on your next appointment," said Ayako, who had ordered a small salad.

Monk slurped up a large, yakisoba noodle with all the grace of a dog eating a banana slug and said, "Rather curious she appeared after all this time. Think she's a recent death?"

"In the doctor's office?" I asked before filling my mouth again. Oh, yeah, that chunk of onion. After this I was going to go to the store and buy a whole stalk of green onions to go to town on.

Ayako made a noise of disbelief. "Seriously, Mai? After all you've seen, you think a haunting is confined to the place where someone dies? Besides, I'm pretty sure that if one of their patients died in their office they'd be shut down. They would have at least sent her to the ER, if she died anywhere near there."

"Then what was she doing there?" I asked.

Ayako and Monk shrug.

"Not any of our concern now, is it?" Monk speared a bit of egg and slipped it in.

"I had hoped to purify her instead of exorcising her," I said. "You were gentle, right?"

"Don't worry about it, Mai. We've seen to a poor girl, you've gotten your ghost adventuring out, so now you can just focus at making your little person."

I gave Monk a look, but didn't say anything. We'd gone through the whole 'still feeling useless because my body is the one making the baby, not me' argument and it wasn't going to get anywhere. It did amuse me how Monk put me on a pedestal just because I was pregnant, though Ayako complained it wasn't just when I was pregnant (though she did so with a smile).

As I took another sip of noodle, a Braxton Hick, as they call the practice contractions of the third trimester, started up. It didn't hurt, per say, though it did feel like Eugene had condensed all his weight to the front of my belly.

This time, however, it rose up to a sharp pain not unlike a bad period cramp. I winced and hissed.

"Contraction?" asked Monk casually, though his hand had jerked in concern and broth sprinkled the table.

"Yeah." I clenched my teeth, but just as quickly as it had come on, it was gone, along with my craving for green onions.

"Keep track of those big ones," said Ayako, watching me closely. "If they get regular and close together, it could be preterm labor and you're going to want to put a stop to that."

"I know, I know." My doctor had lectured me on this several times before.

When I had another one on the way home that stopped my breath for a minute, though, a small, quivering fear started up near the back of my heart.

 **Dear Unhappy Reader:**

 _I am so happy with your response! And yes, about making sure I have new content of the story along with the promotion, I understood your point about that clearly and was quite embarrassed that I had annoyed you and missed that line of the rules. I admit, I skimmed right over the rules, bad me. But the fact that you got my apology instead of getting angry with me delights me. Perhaps we could be friends! I need friends who will catch me when I do a mistake or screw up like that and let me know so I can become better. I want to be better, always._

 _As to my self-published books or a fanfic following being accomplishments—it's the downside of that ambition of mine that you envy. I have such high expectations of myself that it's difficult to accept anything less than what I aim for._

 _And I do all of that other stuff that you have suggested already. The blogs, the social media, the twitter, etc. I even have Paetron account. Just google LoweFantasy. I'm the only one on the net so far. I just…well, whenever I am on a computer (without my toddler crawling all over me and begging that I entertain him or get him a. b. c. or something that will kill him), I'm usually writing, not social media-ing it up, and part of social media marketing is, well, socializing, and, like I said, when I'm on a computer I'm usually writing. X.X I've actually met all my, um, story friends through responding to fanfiction reviews, not through my blog or other means._

 _My blog is doing alright though, I suppose. It's called "The Anxious Mallow" and has pages for my LoweFantasy works as well as my T.S. Lowe works and I've had it for a few years now. So you can find me by googling my pen names or "The Anxious Mallow." I'm even on Facebook! But you're saying it has made me think I need to revisit my profile and make it more clear. I wasn't more clear because I guess I was afraid of irritating people, though doing that just ended up…blah blah…etc…ugh._

 _But you should PM me._ _J_ _I'd like to be able to help you as much as you've helped me. Let me know if there's anything I can do for you._

 _LoweFantasy/Taylor_


	5. Pre-term

**I'm so totally out of it today, guys. I don't know what's up with me, but all I wanna do is sleep and I've slept, like...a million hours already. Wonder if I'm preggers? But please excuse any typos or stupid mistakes you might see. I'm so...ugh.**

 **On a happier note, I'm almost done recording the first audiobook-Cumin! ^.^ So you have that to look forward to. Now here's your weekly chapter to enjoy. Thanks so much for reading-and I've been loving all of your reviews! You honor me so.**

Chapter 4

 _"I didn't hate or even dislike my brother. I am not even sure how so many of those close to me got that impression. Perhaps it was because I was never forward in my affections with him as I was with my parents. But it wasn't because I didn't love him. It was more because he was as much an extension of myself as he was my brother, and I would think it rather out of habit for one to show affection and fondness towards oneself. Otherwise you'd be a narcissist, wouldn't you? And I'd like to think most of us do our best to be or appear to be selfless._

 _Then again, perhaps that is why so many have low self-esteem or even self hatred. Just because it is yourself doesn't mean it isn't human. If one were to exist with another who abused or neglected one constantly, it would be natural for that one to grow to hate the other. Thus would be the case if one abused or neglected oneself._

 _It was once Eugene was gone that I really started to understand this. 'Miss' or even 'devastated' doesn't really cover what I experienced. At first it was disbelief, of course. I, after all, could still breathe and function as I had before, so some strange logic concluded that Eugene couldn't be dead. But then he was gone, and so was I as well. There was a hole where potential had been lost, and it leaked regret and 'never will be' like an infected wound. My brother, my other me, was gone, and only in the emptiness could I comprehend just how poorly I had shown him my affection. Now all I had left of him was my reflection, and I found I couldn't hate it as much as I once had before._

 _Maybe that's why, ever since, I have been called a narcissist."_

 _-_ Oliver Davis in _Gang_ , under a different name.

I ended up in my doctor's office at 35 weeks, even though my next appointment wasn't until I was 36 weeks along. The painful contractions had been coming more often, interspersed with the regular 'Eugene not backing off from my bellybutton' contractions. One of these contractions had sent a mug full of Naru's hot tea all over his office's carpet and up my legs. Since it was August, I had been wearing shorts and ended up with scalding water up my shins. I can't say I'd ever been less amused to see Naru shoot up and out of his chair like it was on fire. It was just a contraction, I wasn't dying.

Even so, he was with me when we walked into the doctor's office and I saw the girl sitting right where I had left her, jeans, striped shirt, short black hair and all. This time, however, though I made my best effort to act like I didn't see anyone there at all, the chair she sat in along with the one next to it were the only ones open. Naru sat in the chair next to her and gave me a weird look when I just stood there in front of the chair, staring at her.

"Another contraction?" he asked, his eyebrows steepening inward. I had been having them since the night before when Naru had made this call into the doctor's office.

"I...uh..." I couldn't sit on her, can I?

Just as I decided that, yes, I could, she was just a ghost after all, she looked up at me.

Except her face wasn't as I remembered it. Her eyes had gone inhumanly dark, swallowing up the white, and her mouth had frozen in a dried, open-mouth gape. Flecks of skin fell from it as it moved.

"Oh, it's you again," she said, and her voice sounded to me as though from a distance. As the words reached my ears, I caught a growing, darkening stain in the crotch of her jeans. It had a red tint to it. Even though I had just noticed it, blood started dripping off the chair, staining the carpet with dark little circles.

Naru stood-and he kept going up. It wasn't till I hit the floor that I realized it wasn't him that had kept going up, but me that had been going down.

But I caught myself on off white tile. Pale arms trembled to hold me up against a renting pain tearing up my abdomen. The cold lip of a toilet pressed between my thighs, but as I looked down between them I could see past the striped shirt I was wearing to the blood crawling down it's porcelain curve. It was coming so quick-too quick, and it hurt so much. I had never been in so much pain before. Was this a miscarriage? No one had ever told me it could be so painful. I had only ever heard of the sorrow of losing a baby. At most I had been told it was like getting a bad period, but I never cramped when I had a period. My friends had been so jealous of that. So maybe it was just like this for me...

But oh dear God, it hurt. And so much blood.

I blinked and the floor was replaced by the dotted, squared industrial ceiling of the doctor's office. Naru's face blocked the light from my face. A cold sweat covered me head to foot.

And yet, all I could comprehend was the pain. Worse than a cramp. Nothing like a contraction. My vision blurred with the intensity.

"Where does it hurt, Mai. Just tell me where it hurts."

I couldn't speak. My breaths were coming out in short, broken gasps intermingled with sobs. I had tucked up my knees to my swollen belly and had my hands twisted up in my shirt without remembering doing so.

And suddenly, Naru's face was replaced with hers, her black hair dripping down, her eyes ever dark, and yet her face still reminded me of myself somehow.

"What is this place?" she whispered. "Why have you brought me here? Why have you done this to me? Please, I'm scared, don't do this to me. What's going on?"

"I haven't done anything to you-" I pushed out quickly before falling back into hyperventilation.

"Of course you haven't." It was Naru's face again, and I recognized the signs of fear in him: the dilated pupils, the paleness about his mouth as his muscles tensed, the shiver to the ends of his hair as he held back his trembling.

More faces tumbled into my view. I recognized the doctor and one of his nurses as they helped Naru lift me into a wheelchair, though Naru did all of the lifting. I would have been ridiculously pleased by his ability to carry his pregnant wife if I hadn't been in such mind bending pain.

"I hurt," came her voice, echoing. "Why did you let them hurt me? What were you trying to do? Who are you?"

They were pushing me towards the doors. The girl's voice was getting quieter, and so was my pain. As it lowered to a recognizable contraction, an irrationally panic erupted from my belly.

"Eugene!" I cried, grabbing for my belly. "Eugene! Naru!"

Even as Naru's lips went white and his face whiter, the last of his self-restraint giving away to full blown terror in his eyes, the doctor spoke to me in a smooth, calming voice.

"Ever will be all right, Mai. We're taking you to the hospital right now. I'll be with you the whole way."

I hardly heard him. My attention was entirely to my belly. "Eugene! Come on, baby, kick, please! Show me you're okay!"

Whether it was because I was more or less screaming at him or because there was no way anyone, baby or not could miss that much commotion, I felt his kick on the side of my stomach harder than ever. It was followed by a three punch martial arts moved that all fetuses seem to know.

I nearly passed out with relief then and there, but I didn't move my focus off of him even as they helped me into the back of the doctor's car. I think they asked me questions but I don't remember my answers. I was keeping track of Eugene's movements, tension mounting as more heavy contractions came in, cramp-like and normal compared to the sudden pain I had experienced before. I lost track of Eugene as the contractions came quicker and lasted longer.

"I've never seen a labor progress so quickly," said the nurse quietly, probably to herself.

"Keep your thoughts to yourself," Naru snapped, his hand tight around my wrist and his eyes to his watch. I knew without him telling me that he was timing my contractions based on when and how hard I clenched his own wrist back.

As for me, I didn't start dramatically shouting out obscenities or screaming. Honestly, I couldn't see how anyone could. The contractions sucked out my voice as every thought turned into a wordless, intense focus on the pain. When they released me, I could only whimper. I was scared. Not just of what was happening to me, but what I could have just caused.

"I'm sorry." I sniffed, shaking like a reed. "Naru. Naru, I'm so sorry."

"What for?" he said with a gentleness I was thankful for. He looked just as afraid as I was.

"I talked to a ghost. With Ayako and Monk-" And my voice vanished, swallowed up by a contraction along with my ability to even form words.

Naru's eyes went back to his watch, but I could feel his fingers tightening around my wrist.

When it released me, I had to pant for breath. "She appeared in the doctor's office and she-she didn't know she was dead, I was just-I was just going to-to talk to her, like Masako does, see if I could help. I even brought Ayako and Takigawa in case something went bad, I kept protections up, and Takigawa even exorcised her, and-"

"What does that have to do with this?" He didn't look as angry as I thought he should.

"I saw her! I saw her in the doctor's office again, but she was all-all messed up and scary. I swear she-auuck." Another contraction did away with anything outside a squeezing uterus.

"Failed exorcisms can do that," he said lowly, disgust evident in his voice. "You're not in trouble, Mai, so get that out of your mind. If anything, that Monk is. He's the one who failed the exorcism, probably because he didn't have his mind fully on the task. Probably didn't even bother putting wards up around you either. Or Ayako, for that matter, isn't that one of the only things she can do?"

Though I heard and comprehended what he said, my mind had become preoccupied with a gushing of fluid inbetween my legs. It almost felt as though I had peed myself-except slimier and not accompanied with that slight tingling burning that comes with urine.

"I never pretended I could keep you from coming across spirits also," continued Naru. "So it's my fault for not making you more comfortable talking to me about it. I did not react appropriately when you told me about those dreams you had, so I don't blame you for thinking you had to hide it from me. Still-"

"I think my water just broke," I said, a bit horrified that it had to be in someone else's car. "I'm sorry, Dr. Biswell."

And then a familiar round, hard something dropped against...well, if you don't have those parts or have experienced it for yourself, I'm not sure there is any other way to describe a baby's head pushing against the back of your cervix. For one, it made my muscles freak out and give an ultimate, stars-popping-in-my vision, breath-eating-away, painful contraction that made my knees shake so hard it was more of a fast pace swing back and forth between each other and the door. The pain was...the pain was...everything. Nothing else existed outside of it, and though I could still hear and see everything, my brain ceased to do anything about it.

Time became irrelevant, a lot like it was on the spirit plane. Somewhere in-between the all-encompassing contractions, Naru got out and reappeared in my doorway, scooping his arms beneath me and lifting me up and out. Someone came to him in a wheelchair, but he ignored it, striding through the ER doors with me, waves of cold, dangerous aura leaking off him. Anyone who saw him, even the nurses who were busy with paperwork or signing in other patients, rushed to his side or coward.

The big, round, hard thing mashed against the tender wall in my groin, fighting to split apart my legs. For the first time I heard myself scream.

A gurney was pushed over. Naru finally let me go, though my hands had turned claw-like and remained hooked into his shirt.

There was no time between the mind numbing contractions. Only peeks. I couldn't think. I had to pant in order to get any air in at all or risk screaming again. Through it all was the overwhelming urge to push-push like I was taking the largest dump in my life. Though the pain remained, the urge overrode it. A doctor or nurse, I didn't care which, told me to wait, told me not to push, but I couldn't have stopped myself even if I had wanted to.

The hard thing came lower. My legs lock into place, split apart. To put them together now would be to crush the ball.

I was pushed into a room of white and blue. Naru had somehow unhooked himself from my claws and had my hands now. The nurses from the ER had been forced back to their original patients and the doctor had run off somewhere to get ready, gloves and what not. Thus, only the one nurse remained, and she was hurriedly busying herself with what could have been an IV or a drip bag.

The round stone was splitting me apart. I was bursting, all my insides were about to fall out.

"Naru!" I cried.

And thank God Naru had one of his moments of telepathy when he could read my mind. He dropped my hand and leapt to the end of the bed. Since I wore maternity jeans, they stretched, and he tore them off with one pull. His eyes went large at whatever horror he saw there and his hands went in.

"Go ahead, Mai," he said, more calm and soothing than I had ever heard him. "Push. Push all you want. I'm here."

Some inhuman strength I had somehow been holding back without knowing it when the doctors told me to weight rose up. I clenched my eyes and hands shut, mentally grasped the muscles about my abdomen, and _pushed._

Now that I was working with it willingly rather than being forced to do it, the pain actually eased with my efforts.

But my air ran out and I hit the back of the gurney, gasping. The hard rock was still there, along with the sensation of my body being torn in two from the groin up. I was vaguely aware of the nurse in the doorway, yelling at the top of her lungs for the doctor, for anyone.

But my attention was to Naru.

"It's alright," he said, and I could feel his cool fingers on the inside of my thigh. "I can see his head, it's right there. Just a few more and he'll be out."

A contraction climbed up, peaking, and I crunched into another vein popping push. I could hear my teeth squeak from my clenching. I could see lights bursting from behind my closed eyelids. I fell back, panting, just to come back up with a closed mouth yell as I shoved and fought. Down, up, down, up. It soon became a full body action to keep going, heaving against the thing that must come _out._

"Keep going, Mai! He's right there-don't let up!"

I was running out of air. My lungs were screaming. But the hard thing-I could feel it, stuck against something, but almost-almost-

It popped loose. I cried out as what felt like all my insides, organs included, came rushing out from between my legs.


	6. Beautiful Guts and Blood

**I'm kind of surprised that so many readers are interested in how my son's birth went. No, it wasn't like this, as I am not Mai and there was no sudden onset of labor like with her. I've combined my experience along with the stories of others I've heard.**

 **Labor lasts for hours, sometimes an entire day. The reason you hear those stories of women giving birth quickly or on the freeway is that, in the last month or so of pregnancy, a lot of women experience a lot of cramping and pain that are like being on your period, and when those cramps steadily increase, you often just take it for more discomfort. You're so use to it by then, you're like 'meh.' Also, the last part of labor (the most dramatic part that you usually see in movies and crap) can vary depending on the woman. I am a rather wide hipped individual and was experiencing false labor pains for a month previous, so I pushed probably three to five times before he came flying out.**

 **Unfortunately, I pushed him out so fast I tore through an artery and bruised his head .. Thus, I can relate to the blood loss, though they didn't give me a blood transfusion. I had problems making it across my living room without passing out for a week. Fun stuff right there.**

 **Also, I had extremely bad post-partum depression, so I was sort of in the suicidal frame of mind for the first month and didn't start appreciating anything, let alone motherhood, until the drugs kicked in. I was to soon find out that the post-partum was only going to get a little better, not go away. Being pregnant combined with some of the things that happened while I was pregnant was the last straw on the camel's back for my mind, and it sort of...broke. Now I have that all famous anxiety/panic disorder you're all familiar with, as I write these little horrors to help cope with it. Because of how bad it is, I may never be able to have another baby because, when I am pregnant, the hormones make my anxiety even WORSE. When I was pregnant I was terrified of eating and my husband had to stay awake all night for the last month so that I could sleep. I was too scared. Combine that with my stupid, makes-no-sense phobia of vomit and morning sickness and...yeah. Now that I have a little one to take care of, being pregnant again would be risky, and my husband is against it. He had to watch me be pregnant, and he's too scared of what might happen.**

 **And some days its really hard for me, because I would give anything to have another little baby to love. Because, in the end, no matter how hard it is, even a moment with my son makes it all worth it. Being a mother will always be the greatest privilege I've ever been given.**

 **Another reason Mai and I are different is that Mai loves babies and kids. I do not and did not. I was afraid of becoming a mom because I was afraid I might not like it. But...it's something you can't comprehend until it happens to you. Once you sacrifice so much for someone else, your capacity to love and to experience deep-seated joy, the kind that makes trailers into palaces, goes out of this world. And take it from someone who suffers from periods where I see no point to staying alive-children give you a reason to live. For someone like me, sometimes, when your stupid sick brain won't work right, you need that reason.**

 **I usually avoid long author's notes. XD But I hope it answers most of your questions, if not all. If you have any other questions, please feel free to PM me. I love talking to my readers. It's how I've found some priceless friends. Hope you enjoy this week's update!**

 **-LoweFantasy/Taylor**

Chapter 5

 _"Losing Gene didn't teach me how the existence of your entire world could hinge on the existence of one person. It merely taught me the potential. His loss gave me that first deadly taste of what it would mean to really lose. There was no imagining it. There was no knowing it. Not until it happened._

 _It happened in that moment I saw her adrift, free of gravity, as the ambulance which held us began the long fall into the abyss. It sunk in with the cold as I pulled her from the wreckage. It took control as I lead her, shivering, sore, small, and white back to the hotel, back to the car. And it broke loose the moment I felt the car's heater on my numb fingers._

 _Gene, you bastard. Why couldn't you have meant more to me? Then perhaps I could have been prepared for this."_

 _-_ Oliver Davis in _Slim,_ under a different name.

And with the eviction of my innards came a piercing wail.

I blearily opened my eyes, stupefied by the sudden loss of pain and pressure, as well as finally having enough space in my chest to breathe. Naru hunched between my legs, leaning on the end of the bed. I couldn't see his face as my knees had fallen together from the sudden loss of pressure.

Just as Dr. Biswell came rushing in, a flock of nurses at his elbows, Naru rose, a most incomprehensible look of wonder on his handsome face. Just around my legs I could see grey-blue fists, quickly turning bright pink, and covered with a milky residue, come flailing into existence. Little fingers splayed out and back into the fist sporadically.

"Mai..." He couldn't look away from what he held, even as the doctor nudged him aside and pulled back open my legs and a nurse pushed in close to clamp the umbilical cord. "God above...Mai..."

Thoughts of horrible deformations came to my weary mind and I started to panic. "He's not a freak, is he?"

The nurses and doctor laughed, but Naru didn't. He just smiled a goopy, tender little thing.

"See for yourself."

And ignoring the nurse trying to get him to cut the cord or bundle the baby or whatever, Naru stepped out from between my legs to give me my first view of the wet, slightly bloody, wailing thing kicking in his hands.

A little human. Fully formed, with perfect tiny fingers and toes attached to miniscule, but undeniable, feet. Even the ears were completely human. Despite being wet and crisscrossed with my own blood, I could see that the little thing had a human face; a lovely, little face, even scrunched up and screaming, and topped with a patch of wet, messy black hair.

Strange how it amazed me that the giant, most agonizing dump I had made had such fine, detailed features, though I don't know what I had been expecting-surely not a giant turd after expecting this person for nine months.

"Getting shoved out of a hole that's too small can't be the most reassuring thing," said Naru, laughter in his voice. "Mai, look at him!"

Yes. Look at him. Disgusting, turning red, screaming at the top of his lungs, clearly freaked out and maybe in more than a little discomfort at being forced out of his warm, safe world.

He was beautiful.

Not caring that I'd get blood and birth juices all over my shirt and favorite bra, I reached out for him, cooing to him and beyond exhausted. Half of me wanted Naru to take the screaming thing away so I could sleep forever. The other half of me couldn't think of anything but holding my baby so I could quiet his cries and trace the outline of each of those tiny, perfectly formed toes, maybe to be amazed that he wasn't just a glob of premature human flesh, but an actually, fully formed person, completely unique unto himself.

My baby. _My_ baby.

Naru obliged, barely waiting long enough for the nurse to cut the cord before he awkwardly laid the tiny human onto my chest. A nurse threw a warm towel over the baby and me while another eased the gurney/bed into a sitting position. I put my hands on the little thing, marveling at the strength I felt in his heaving cries. His little arms felt fully capable of lifting him right up and away from me.

"You don't look as freaky as I thought you would," I told him. At the sound of my voice his cries quieted and large, dark eyes blinked open to stare back up at me from my chest. They arrested my gaze and held it, and for a moment I wondered if he fully comprehended what he was seeing and was lost in wonder at me as I was with him. I didn't know this little person at all. He was a complete stranger to me, despite the nine months of making me eat weird foods and kicking at my organs. And yet I couldn't help feel as though he knew me.

"Okay, I'm going to need you to push one more time for me," said the doctor. "Got to get the placenta out and all its goods. Dad, if you want to wash off your arms there's a sink behind you."

Naru flinched at being addressed, as though he had forgotten there were other people in the room. Or maybe it was because the doctor had called him 'Dad.' "Oh. Yes. Thank you."

The push to get the afterbirth out was nothing compared to what it had taken to get Eugene out. I was asked if I wanted to see the placenta when it came out (eww, no), and then I finally gave up Eugene to a nurse to be cleaned, weighed, and measured. My arms felt like lead as I did so. The exhaustion, heady like a room full of steam, beckoned me to darkness. It was over. It was all over.

I closed my eyes.

"The bleeding's too fast," said the doctor. "A shot of ergometrine, if you would."

Without warning, a needle was pounded into my thigh. It was a testament to how tired I was when I didn't even flinch. And hungry, now that I thought about it. But first...sleep...

The doctor made a low, displeased grunt in his throat. "The placenta must have ruptured the wall. Start the massages."

When a pair of strange, cold hands shoved themselves onto my stomach, I came to with a shriek of pain. A nurse was fisting her hands into my now flat, somewhat baggy abdomen. The other two crowded about the sink and the angry Eugene.

"What was that for?" asked Naru, alarmed and angry. He had taken up a place at my side without my notice and his expression turned sharp.

"To help slow down the bleeding," said the doctor without looking up. I could feel his hands at work around my neither region, stuffing what could have been rags or who knew what in. "Usually the contraction of the uterus is enough to slow the bleeding. The massage is to help apply that same pressure."

"S-stop!" I gasped, pushing against one of the nurse's wrists. She paused, looking sympathetic.

"I know it hurts, honey, but we don't want you to bleed out, right?"

Tears that had dried from the pain of labor were renewed as she continued to squish my tender, beat up stomach. I didn't want this. I just wanted my baby to stop crying and to be left alone to sleep-maybe along with a big sandwich or something else I could eat quickly. That's all I wanted. Please.

I bit my lip and endured it, whimpering and crying. It didn't help that I could practically feel Naru tensing up like a windup toy ready to explode. When they finally brought over the snuffling Eugene, cleaned and wrapped in a blanket with his cone shaped head hidden in a little hat (being squeezed through a birth canal does that to a baby's head), the nurse told me to take off my shirt and bra.

"What?" Like being beaten up wasn't good enough for them? I had to be naked too? Well, then again I wasn't wearing any pants. Couldn't someone give me a blanket or something?

Naru must have been thinking the same thing. "I'll take him. Get her some blankets, she's shaking."

"But the baby's going to need the colostrum-"

"I'm not an idiot to my own son's needs, I've done my reading. Now get her a blanket."

The temperature in the room dropped several degrees. Even the doctor glanced up from his work, but quickly looked back down, probably to avoid meeting the glacial glare that Naru had aimed at the poor nurse still holding Eugene.

"I-I can get it while she feeds the baby," said the other nurse nervously, then seemed to change her mind as Naru's glare switched to her. "Right. Blanket." She nudged the nurse next to her, which seemed to be what the poor woman needed to unfreeze.

"Here!" she squeaked, holding out the capped bundle of Eugene to Naru.

It was remarkable how he could take the baby with such awkward tenderness while maintaining the icy intimidation factor. His hands trembled almost imperceptibly as he made sure to keep his son's head cradled and folded him into his arms. Eugene's snuffles rose to a readying yowl once more and Naru gingerly tried bouncing his arms up and down while keeping the baby close. It must have been something he had read about but never seen anyone actually do, probably right next to whatever told him about colostrums.

I would have said something witty or half way funny about all this if I wasn't having my innards kneaded like a loaf of bread. I was about ready to smack both the doctor and nurse away and tell them to let me bleed out, I didn't care anymore.

By the time I got blankets thrown over me, I had somehow managed to wriggle out of the last of my clothes without ever remembering doing so. Naru handed me the baby, and a very nervous nurse squeezed past Naru to lead the baby's mouth to the nipple. If I had been expecting a little tickling or even something half-way relaxing with my first nursing, I was wrong.

The little devil had been born with a mouth full of sandpaper. The grainiest, roughest, this-could-tear-bark-off-trees sandpaper.

I was all out sobbing now.

"It's okay, your nipples will get use to it," said the now very apprehensive nurse who kept glancing at Naru, who even though he had his arms crossed and was the perfect image of cool and collect, looked ready to do something violent. "We'll get you some ointment for it and a cooling pad, okay?"

I couldn't bring up the will to talk. This wasn't fair. This wasn't fair.

"Mai..." murmured Naru.

"There, I think it's slowing down now..." Dr. Biswell sat back and wiped at his forehead with his elbow.

Instantly the 'massaging' nurse backed off. I took a tentative, deep breath. At least that torture was over and done with.

Sometime later, after more nursing torture, being forced to pee when my neither region was way not in the mood (ugh, more pain), and once I'd been dressed in a hospital gown, I was finally wheeled over to the maternity ward, where I was banded, stuck with an IV, pricked for blood, weighed, tested, and generally harassed until finally left to my bed. Eugene was left besides me in a large, plastic, wheeled cradle, already sleeping soundly.

The last thing I saw before darkness took over was Naru's pale, long-fingered hands locking the door.

"I am not paying them for that," he growled.


	7. Baby Toes

**Get ready to die.**

Chapter 6

 _"Though I respected her, Masako Hara (listed under a different name in this tale) represented everything I was wary of in the world of romance. She was beautiful, yes, but she played on that beauty. She watched the world through calculating, glittering eyes that could lie as well as they told the truth. When she attempted to understand me, it was always how she wanted to understand me, not as I really was. In me she saw tall, dark, and handsome. In me she saw romance._

 _And because of that, I couldn't even compare her to Mai(also listed under a different name). It had nothing to do with leagues, but rather worlds. With Mai it stopped being romance, which I knew nothing at all and frankly wanted nothing to do with, and became a simple love that a child could appreciate. With Mai it wasn't fulfilling needs or feeding hungers, it was laughter and safe places devoid of mirrors or twins or a need to justify my wonder. With Mai it wasn't witty, sultry, coy, or dishonest, but always as clear and bright as sunshine and as welcoming to read as an open book._

 _Mai wasn't just beautiful. She was a kind of undeniable pull, an attraction that brings plants reaching for the sun, babies to their mothers, and planets into orbits. She had something that went beyond appearances and banished my fears. Perhaps it was because she forced my head into looking the right direction. Or, perhaps, it was because I loved her."_

 _-_ Oliver Davis in _Holy,_ under a different name.

I woke up when a nurse reattached the sandpaper sucker to my breast. I cried with discomfort and a want to sleep then, but it was over soon enough and the nurse all but fled from Naru's ice-demon presence. He was at the ready to scoop Eugene out of my arms as soon as I had my ladies tucked back into the paisley hospital gown. I turned over and tried to go back to the dreamless nothing I had been in before, but Naru's soft voice distracted me.

"Looks like you, junior, need your pants changed."

I smiled into my pillow, hoping he couldn't see. Best that he think I was asleep.

Eugene burbled various baby noises. He was surprisingly talkative for a newborn.

"Hey to you too. Where are those diapers? Ah." I heard the squeak of the wheeled cradle that I had my back to. A clip of onsie buttons.

The burbling snuffled into the beginning of a whimper.

"I know, it's cold. I'll be quick."

Eugene started to cry, not the full bore wails he had done in the birthing room, but that just made them all the more heartbreaking. The softer cries had a tired, pleading note to them.

Some seconds of shuffling later, Naru said, "There. Back in the bundle, back we go, back we go. Nope, keep that foot in."

A cradle wheel creaked and I could sense Naru lifting up the infant and bouncing again, though I don't think he'd gotten any better because I could hear his heels clacking on the floor. It must have worked, however, because Eugene's cries began to die.

"There we go," he all but whispered.

When his heels stopped tapping against the floor, I had my peace and once more slipped back to sleep.

This time, my sleep wasn't as dreamless as I had hoped it would be. A foxfire burnished plain stretched out before me, glazed over with images of white tiles, the view of blood dripping down a toilet bowl between my legs, and flashes of pain taken from a distance.

The girl reappeared to me, bloody and haggard in her now scarlet stained jeans and striped shirt. Her hair looked stringy and greasy from sweat.

"I'd meant to go to the doctor's," she said, at me-but wait, no, to the floor. "I was going to go in a few hours. Just two. They'd even made an emergency opening for me. I didn't realize...I knew it was...I can't be dead. What is this place? What did you do to me? Why am I so lost, why do I hurt so much? I thought I knew where I was-I was just waiting to get checked, but now I'm lost and lost and lost..."

Her voice faded away, along with the visions of white and blood. The foxfire burn, washed out blue against black, wavered across my consciousness.

My heart reached out for her. But my mind stayed in place, too exhausted even in my dreams to put forth an effort.

"Where am I? Is this my punishment? For sleeping around? For lying to my mom and Jimmy about it being his? It hurts. What can I do to make you let me go? How did you know? What are you?"

My heart beat hard, rousing my sleepy mind.

"I'm just a medium," I got out. "I was just trying to help. My friend tried to exorcise you and did it wrong."

"Exorcise me? I wasn't hurting anyone, why would he do that?"

"We were just trying to help-"

"Well you made it WRONG."

I woke up with a start and a gasp-and right on time. A nurse had Eugene in her arms, ready to attach his sandpaper sucker onto my defenseless nipple.

"Yeah, those dreams can be vivid," she said, nodding sagely, even as she peeled out my newborn from his blankets. "While your body is flushing out the hormones you're going to get some night chills too. There's a shower in the bathroom if you want to use it. Do you need shampoo?"

And since my stomach decided to remind me that I never fulfilled its post-labor demand, a wave of nauseating hunger overcame any semblance of coherency from me. Since I was already on my side so I didn't need much coherency to hold him to me, Eugene's sandpaper sucker snapped me back.

"Owieeee!"

"I'll get you some gel for that too," said the nurse, as though checking off a list and not really seeing me. I even had a hard time recalling when she had pulled back the gown from my breast. Was anyone in this place going to bother asking permission before stripping me? "Would you like some food? There's a menu here of what we got."

It took me a moment to work through the tear-inducing pain to see she was holding out a black folder to me where I lay, and also that she wasn't nervous for once. Taking the folder, I caught sight of the reason for that by the black huddle on the pull out bed. Naru was out. But it only made sense, seeing it was five in the morning.

I ordered up to three dishes that sounded good, handed back the menu, and tried my best to focus on the little squirming person I had scooped against my chest. Just as the door snapped closed behind the nurse, Eugene came off with a little 'pop' and looked up at me. It was so strange how aware he was, and how he could find my eyes right away.

"Hi again," I murmured, stroking a finger down his cheek. The poor thing still had a bit of ruddy coloring to him, and his eyes were bruised as though he had been punched in the face. Being born can do that to a person, I supposed.

He tried to find the nipple again while keeping his eyes on me and ended up looking like an open mouthed derp, which helped shake the chill from my vision. Despite knowing the pain in store, I gave him the nipple and let him torture it some more. At least while I was wincing and whimpering I wasn't thinking about dead people.

The lump on the couch grumbled my name and Naru's head lifted above the white hospital blanket, his eyes squinting with sleep.

"Go back to sleep," I said softly, doing my best to keep the pain out of my voice.

He sat up though, rubbing his eyes hard. "No. You got that look. What did you dream?"

I gawked at him. "Look? Can you even see right now? You look like a bear coming out of hibernation."

"Maybe it's a sound," he grumbled. He was wearing the same clothes he had come in with. In the soft nightlight glow above the bed, I could make out stains on it. Eww. I'd have to call in someone to fix that. Seriously, this man... "Or some sense, I don't know, just tell me what you saw."

"Just that ghost girl. She's hurt from the exorcism and doesn't understand what's happening to her or even how she died." Eugene popped off my nipple again and started waving his arms sporadically. I sighed and let him roll onto his back besides me, where he kicked and squirmed, baby grunts and all. If he didn't feel like eating, like hell was I going to make him.

"Okay, but what did you _see._ "

Since I needed the distraction from my sickly hunger and how weak I felt, I told him every detail I could remember while sticking my finger from one of Eugene's palms to the next. Each time he reflexively grabbed hold of it, but his uncoordinated wriggling as he tested out his limbs in the new world inevitably pulled his hand away from me. Little thing had some nails on him, but I guess there's no nail-clippers in the uterus. Good thing they were baby soft, at least.

But the best part was-I smiled as I thought it-I wasn't pregnant anymore. Though even as I thought that I wondered why I felt so numb. The only emotion I could really get was relief. It was like giving birth burnt out whatever organ produced feeling, and it unnerved me. I wanted to be happy. I had a baby, for Pete's sake! A squirmy, perfectly formed, oddly attentive little baby.

"Sounds like she died from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy," he said, leaning his closed eyes into the ball of his palms. "It's when a fertilized egg implants somewhere other than the uterus, most often the fallopian tubes, and since the fallopian tubes aren't built to stretch or support that, the pregnancy soon ruptures out and causes severe internal bleeding. If not caught before then, survival is very chancy."

"How do you even know that?" My new entertainment was putting an open hand out for Eugene's feet to kick. Whenever one of his feet would land he'd push against my hand, pushing him across the blankets a few centimeters, then snap it back as though it were on a spring. His toes were no bigger than my pinky fingernail.

"I wanted to know how to take care of my pregnant wife."

"Don't take that tone like I should have thought of that. No wonder you were so paranoid. You probably read up everything that could have gone possibly wrong and replayed it in your head whenever you saw me."

"I'm not paranoid, and something did happen, didn't it?" He started grinding his palms against his eyes. "Eugene is technically premature by a week. He's even got the fuzz to prove it, if you ever see him without that jumper on. It's a kind of-"

"I know what lanugo is," though it came out more tired than terse. "I...I don't want to think how I...it's all my fault."

"The ghost was at your doctor's office," he said blandly. "It was hardly your fault. It's Monk's. He botched the exorcism. That ghost would have remained harmless if he hadn't tried that. I doubt anything you could have said could have given her that much power. Besides, your protections were up, weren't they?"

"Yes."

"And you trusted that the ghost would be gone-you trusted him-so when you went back to the office your defenses were down. I know you wouldn't have done anything to endanger Eugene."

At the growing tension in his voice, it was like that same burnt out organ that produced my emotions just got more and more flat. I couldn't even prod it to care that the wrath of Naru was directed at Monk, and that I still didn't entirely agree with his logic. The little bit of guilt it had managed to wring out sputtered and died even as it whispered that I hadn't thought the ghost would have harmed me, let alone Eugene-but that I should have known better. I should have at least waited until I could keep Eugene away from a scene like that.

When the food came, Naru got up to gather up his son, despite the nurse's protests that she could take the baby so he could go back to sleep. I then discovered, as the little motor pushed up the bed into a sitting position, that my...well, sitting hurt. A lot. The nurse set out a cup with two pills in it besides the heavy laden tray that folded out from the wall.

"This should help," she said. "It's just Ibuprofen, but a much larger dose than you can get without a prescription, so make sure you eat something first. And this is just an iron supplement for all the blood you lost."

I almost asked her to take it back and get me the hard core good stuff that make you high as a kite, but the call of food was far more powerful. Also, just because I'd turn into a numb zombie didn't mean I'd lost all sense of dignity.

"Even so," said Naru, who had sat back in his bed and had Eugene in the groove of his lap where his thighs met. "I'm going to have to call him in. He's the only one who can fix what he screwed up. You don't mind getting a visitor, do you?"

I shook my head. As long as they let me eat in peace, I didn't care who came. Heck, they could even see me drop out a boob to nurse and I wouldn't care, I was so gone. Wait, no, Naru needed a new shirt...whatever.

"Alright." He tugged a finger out of Eugene's hold and reached for his cell phone on the side table. "Oh, and Mai? You're amazing."

I shot him a questioning glance, mouth full of pasta. Despite his pale features and five o'clock shadow, his tender, gut melting smile was the same as always, despite the fact that I probably looked like the rear end of a baboon.

He jerked his chin down to the baby already kicking his way out of his meticulously wrapped bundle.

"He's perfect."


	8. Return of the Dead

**Noticing that a lot of my more active readers haven't left reviews yet made me realize it's finals time! So, in efforts to support you all in your final tests, whether that be in middle school, high school, or college, I've put forth an extra update in support. May it serve to give you a moments relief from the stress.**

 **^.^You can do it!**

 **Love, LoweFantasy/Taylor**

Chapter 7

" _Something I always have to remind myself when faced with the ugliest side of humanity is that there is opposition in all things. It's one of the most basic laws to existence that has been proven true time and time again. Wherever there is light, there is darkness. Darkness is the lack of light. Light the lack of darkness. Thus, for all the rapists and drug dealers and murderers, there are those of angelic nature who would sacrifice their life to save the least of the human race. For all the wars and calamities in the world, there has to be somewhere of equal peace and beauty to match. For all the pain, there is also joy and pleasure._

 _Which makes me all the more intolerant of those petty souls who chose to deal in filth and human suffering. With all the world at your disposal, all of that potential and beauty, what made them think it would bring them happiness to make others suffer? To gain at the expense of the innocent?_

 _That right there is the most elementary definition of evil. The children's cartoon villain, cackling at the suffering of those beneath them, especially those who are weak."_

-Oliver Davis in _White,_ under a different name

When I passed out trying to get out of the bed, I ended up having Naru hovering outside the shower curtain, with my second addition to the boy collection snoozing in his plastic cradle in the doorway. Apparently the sound of water did the trick for Eugene.

"If anyone needs a shower, it's you," I said, insisting on keeping myself covered up as I didn't want him to see my post baby, flabby stomach. "I can smell you from in here. You could have called Takigawa and asked him to bring some clothes or something."

"I already did, but he's a bit preoccupied with picking up my parents and Lin from the airport."

"That was quick."

"Yeah, well, they were planning on coming soon anyways. They just didn't tell me, like always, because they knew I'd just to duck away or something."

From my place on the old person's seat, I could hear his wariness. Though he loved them, Naru's parents could be a bit overbearing at times. Having lost their other son could do that, but it also came from the fact that they had lived for so long without children that it pained them to be without them. That being said, I knew they had spent an awful lot of their fortune just traveling to Japan and back and couldn't help feeling sorry that we had insisted staying in Japan until the pregnancy played out. I had been sick and anxious, and so not really into the idea of jumping into a jet to live in a foreign country for the rest of my life. One big change (like having a baby) was enough, thank you.

Pink water ran down my leg, as it had been since I'd gotten in. When I had looked back at my bed, I noticed for the first time that I had been laid out on a pad of sorts, and despite the cotton underwear and pad they put on me, the bed pad had been scarlet. From how much blood I was losing, I wasn't surprised I was passing out, but then the nurses had told me that was normal. Something about creating a lot of extra blood when you're pregnant.

Thinking about it, I shuddered. At least I didn't have any stretch marks on my stomach. They were only on my thighs and hips, which now looked like ground beef...

"You doing okay?"

I broke out from my thoughts. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"If you feel like you're going to pass out, let me know."

"As you've told me twice already. Naru, please, try to relax. You're going to make yourself sick."

"Well, if you had been in my shoes you'd be rather traumatized too."

"Yeah right, you're face was gaping in wonder when you got to hold your son for the first time." I let out a little squeal-a soft one, so as to not wake the baby. " _Adorable._ "

"Wonder with him, not with the whole process. Whoever says birth is beautiful is sick. It was terrifying."

"Really?"

"If you want to know, look up a video, because I'm done talking about it. Just remembering..."

Now that I was remembering too, I could empathize. That hadn't been fun. At all.

"Yeaaah, let's not do that again..." I said.

"Let's."

Since I was enjoying not being in a bed and gross, and also because if I moved too quickly I'd get light headed, Naru's parents arrived before I had finished bathing. He rolled out Eugene and brought me a change of clothes, along with a tote of new essentials a nurse and brought by. Good thing my old person chair had wheels so I could scoot over to the fleshy-pink colored tote. Really, someone should rethink the colors of this place. The blinding white of the bathroom wasn't exactly comforting either.

It felt like it took me almost as long to dress as it did to bathe with my vision blackening every so often, but it didn't, and soon I was picking myself up and out the doorway.

Just as I got a view of Luella and Martin, Naru caught my elbow. I had started to black out, but lucky for him I had been preparing for it and locked my knees, so even though I couldn't see, persay, I could still stand. Mad skills, right there.

Luckily for me the clothes they brought were loose, baggy, and comfortable, because it hurt to sit...scratch that, it hurt to be doing anything except lying down. The bloody bed pad had been changed out for a new one, even though I had one of the monster maxi pads in the hospital cloth underwear.

Eugene started to fuss. But for some reason, even though the crying was picking up in intensity, the volume grew dimmer. The pressure of Naru's grip on my elbow lightened until it vanished completely, and the light blue of the hospital room's walls was replaced by the distant glow of foxfires.

The ghost girl huddled in a ball on the floor with her head between her knees, a puddle of blood leaking around her. Now that I had seen all the blood I could make, it didn't scare me so much. I got the sense that she had been here a very long time, longer than I had been alive, and yet not long at all. Her clothes were quite modern, and she had only appeared in the doctor's office a few weeks ago.

But then that world too began to fade as Eugene's crying pierced through the gloom. I reached back for it, a gut-kneading desperation to reach him, to quail the crying, drawing me back out. As I got closer, I heard Naru shout for a nurse. My bottom half was on something hard and it made my tender half ache in protest.

I made out his face at the end of a dark tunnel. Gone was his famous composure. His eyes shivered, wide and white, and I could see the pink veins encroaching from the corners. That tiny pull out bed couldn't have been all that comfortable, after all.

"It's okay," I told him, aware of my mouth moving from a distance.

"You can't even stay conscious, how is this okay?"

The tunnel was growing longer. Naru's face became a pinpoint that I held hard. Something moved me to tell him-it was very important for him to know.

"She's here."

The end of the tunnel drew to a close. The last thing I saw was his lips, moving, but I didn't comprehend what they were saying. Eugene's crying had filled up the last of my consciousness, flooding it with a blind panic. I had to get to my baby. I had to help my baby.

Then it was black.

Foxfires. The bleeding girl was huddled on the floor, head between her knees; deja vu. The blood around her glistened. I had never seen blood so bright, so red. It made the purple stripes of her shirt look black and her faded out jeans white.

But I didn't draw near to comfort her. Something told me I shouldn't. She thought I had done this to her, after all, and she hadn't believed me when I told her I hadn't. She had no reason to trust or believe me, and for all intents and purposes, she had induced me into pre-term labor. Granted, Eugene was only a week early and therefore okay, but a ghost with the power to do that was not exactly reassuring to have around.

I tried stepping back, and just as soon as I thought it I had put several meters between us. She didn't look up, nor had my movement made any sound. Wary of going too far and getting lost, having had my father bring to my awareness the kinds of things that could happen if one allowed their soul to get lost on the spiritual plane, I hunkered down and settled for watching. If she happened to see me, I could run then.

Now and then I thought I could hear Eugene, crying, but the moment I focused, it drifted away like a dim memory. I found myself growing edgier as I wondered how long I was going to be here, and why I was here in the first place. I wanted to get back to my baby. If I stayed out for much longer, Naru would panic. That almost upset as much as my baby crying for me.

"I think the doctors in the maternity ward get so use to pain and blood, they're desensitized and have a harder time noticing when something's really wrong."

Heart leaping to my throat, I turned my head. As I did so, the spiritual plane morphed, bursting with summer light and green grass. An almost neon blue sky spread ahead, framing more green, either through leaves or curtains, I somehow couldn't tell. I had been taken back to the usual ambiguity of a dream as my brain struggled to process what it was seeing.

And besides me, dressed for the first time in casual jeans and white shirt, was Gene.


	9. When God Reaches Down

Chapter 8

" _Mai wife's abilities have baffled many, including me. If there were any rules to psychic powers, she would have broken them all. I will not waste space in a narrative to go into what I've managed to comprise a whole book about, but suffice it to say that the moment I thought I had her abilities categorized, they'd change-or fail to meet the bill. While not a perfect medium like Gene was, her ability to gather insight pertaining to her own survival has gone beyond basic human instinct. It has led me to believe that she is an evolved outlier._

 _But since its evolution seems to be based off exposure to the supernatural, I have wondered on more than one occasion if she would have never noticed she had abilities if I had not entered her life. I, after all, don't lead an exactly supernatural phenomenon free life."_

 _-_ Oliver Davis in _Slim,_ under a different name

He had never looked more unlike his twin and so uniquely himself in all my life. It was almost as though he had never been a twin at all.

"Unless it's the baby, that is," he said, giving me a soft, and yet still radiant smile. "Women just don't die of childbirth anymore. Not afterwards, anyways. Not often."

I was stopped from throwing myself on him in a full-body hug by those words. My body went cold.

"I'm dead?" No. That couldn't be. Where had been the tunnel of light? But Gene had moved on, I shouldn't be able to see him, unless I was-

"Calm down, you're not dead. Not yet, anyways."

That didn't help me feel any better. "Eugene Davis, tell me why you're not crossed over right now-"

"I did cross over!" he said, hands up in defense, though the edge of laughter to his tone didn't help. "Get this, though, the spiritual world? It's here. On Earth. When we cross over, we go to a place to review our lives, but then we're just sent back to the spiritual plane, except it's different. It's not the black place with the foxfires, it's Earth, just changed to how you've lived your life-based on your perception even further." Gene waved his arm over the ethereal glen of grass and trees and tear-jerking blue sky. "You're probably having a hard time focusing on this place yourself, but it's a good sign if you see something beautiful or your comfortable here."

"Why?"

"Means you're going in the right direction. Choice wise." He brought up his knees and folded his arms over them casually. "But thing is, you're still alive, so you still have to deal with the veil. The only reason you can see me now, I think, is because you're so close to death. But don't be afraid. Death is nothing to be afraid of."

I jerked away from him. "Of course you can say that! I have a baby and a husband-they _need_ me. I need them. I'm not ready-I can't-" Tears bubbled from my eyes, but I didn't have a throat to clog. I just couldn't form the words through the sheer emotion that had taken over that ability.

"Shh, shh, Mai, no, don't cry. Everything's going to be alright."

His arms reached out to encompass me, and I wanted to push him off, but I didn't. I had missed him. I had missed him so much, and I was so scared.

"Remember what I told you?" he said, soft as the musical sigh of the breeze. "Time on this plane is relevant. Right now, on the other side of the veil, your heart only stops but a moment and no one will even notice, because it will start back up. Your blood pressure just dropped too quickly."

"H-how do you know this?"

"There's a book out there that says something along the lines of the righteous will be able to know the thoughts of others. Did you know that predicting the future is all based off of knowing people enough to predict their actions or thoughts? Well, not all of it, but what I've learned so far. But, well, long story short, I didn't do too badly at my life. Not perfectly, but I'm working on that. They're more than happy to give me every opportunity and chance to advance. They're practically begging me to."

His chatter was calming, and I rubbed my face into the soft fabric of his shirt. It felt so real, and I thought I could catch the smell of sage-almost just like Naru's scent, except without that trace of tea, and somehow purer.

"Who are they?" I murmured, wrapping my arms tight around his middle.

Here, he hesitated. As he did so, the warm light of the world grew a distant like quality. But his hand rubbed up and down my back, stilling the panic that rose at the change.

"Angels. Sentinels. Servants. Messengers. Brothers and sisters. Really, you should find out for yourself. I said you weren't going to die, didn't I?"

His hands slipped from my back, down my arms, and his soft shirt and smell pulled away as well. Darkness began to encroach about my vision, covering Gene's happy face and his heavenly surroundings. I didn't fight it, though. It meant I was going back.

Though, in its place, the hunched, bloody figure wearing a striped, purple shirt started to fade back.

"Wait! What about her? The girl?"

"Don't worry about another exorcism destroying her," said Gene, his voice now almost a whisper. "The human spirit is immortal and eternal. It's all emotional and mental. Once she crosses over and goes to judgment, all will be made right."

Blackness. I could no longer see Gene. There weren't even any foxfires. The hunched over girl rose to look somewhere into the darkness, but I could not see what she saw, nor could I know if she saw me or not. I could hear something though: a soft, gentle voice. A voice I knew.

"...Oh Father, who art in heaven, hollowed be thy name..."

I moved towards the sound without using a limb, pulled by desire and an aching delight. Oh, John. Oh, my precious friend.

"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven..."

The girl straightened, and as she did so her hair moved back, so I could watch the tears and pain vanishing from her face. She took a step towards his voice as well, but as she did so, someone materialized besides her, brilliant and white like lightning, and yet not painful to look at or harmful to the comforting darkness about it. As its features grew clearer and its hand landed on her shoulder, I recognized the face: Gene, except with snow-silver hair and eyes like a fire and gleam of a diamond.

The girl flinched, stunned. Gene's mouth moved, but I couldn't hear the words. The hand moved from her shoulder to her hand and, although the dried out, haunted look didn't leave her face, and though she still trailed blood behind her, she followed him into the light I had previously thought was emitted by him, but was rather emitted by whatever portal he had come out of. I stared hard into the light, trying to make out what really was beyond, because somehow, intrinsically, I knew it wasn't the green pasture Gene and I had been in before. This place was different, and some base, ancient part of my soul ached with forgotten memory. I started following them, almost running towards the light.

" _No, Mai..._ "

I stopped. My heart trembled. That voice...

No. I couldn't go. It wasn't my time. Hadn't I just told Gene I had a baby and Naru to live for? My time wasn't yet ended. I still had many wonderful things to experience and learn, a life to accomplish.

So, despite the gut wrenching ache in my bowls to keep running towards the shrinking light, I turned my face away-

And woke up in the hospital bed, Eugene's familiar wails cracking into my ears and Naru besides me, pale. A nurse had appeared besides me and was finishing hooking up a blood bag to my IV. Doctor Biswell had returned between my legs (good thing I had lost my dignity a long time ago anyways-at least they bothered to put a blanket over me this time so the doc was looking into a white tent). Naru's parents stood near the window looking just as frightened and pale, with a squirming, crying Eugene in Luella's arms.

Instantly, I reached out for him. "Eugene. Please."

"He's okay-" started Naru, but Luella had already crossed the distance and handed over my son.

"I think he's scared," she said. "Scared for his mommy."

It must have been something like that, because the moment I had Eugene cradled to my chest his crying turned to snuffling, and his little hands twisted and flopped against me. He nuzzled his face against a breast, searching for comfort, a fat tear slipping off his cheek.

"It's okay, baby." I brought him up to bury my face in his baby-scented bundle. "Baby. Baby. Ssshhh."

I heard a snap of a book and a cool brush of fingers against my forehead. "Bless us this day..."

Hidden from my peripheral vision by the bulk of the nurse and her work area, I had almost missed the blond, freckled man dressed in khaki shorts and a button up plaid t-shirt. His skin had toasted to a light almond brown since the last time I had saw him, but his blue eyes reminded me of that tear-jerking sky in Gene's heaven.

His fingers completed the cross of holy water on my brow. Then, hesitantly, and gently, he brought them down to do the same to my baby's face, though it was a bit more difficult with the newborn trying to undress me in his haphazard, I-don't-really-know-how-to-control-my-limbs-yet way.

As John finished his prayer, he tugged a rosary from his pocket and draped it over my head, careful to adjust it so it didn't get in my baby's way. With his soft Amen, the roomed seemed to light, almost as though a cloud had moved away from the sun.

"The bleeding's slowing," said the doctor, surprise tingeing his relief. He pulled his head out from the tent and eased my legs back down. "Seems a blood clot wiggled itself lose and picked up the bleeding again. You should be fine, though. Might have to keep you another day, though, Miss Davis." He nodded his head towards Naru. "I apologize for the scare."

Naru said nothing. His returning gaze, however, was icy. I didn't expect anything less.

Nor did I care, for I had looped an arm around John's neck and brought him in as a close a hug as I could with my weak strength. John seemed a bit startled at first, but he returned the hug with equal affection, careful not to squish the baby between us.

"It's good to see you," I managed through a tight throat. Man, I was so freaking emotional. Where had the exhausted post-popped-out-a-baby numbness gone?

"Seems I got here just in time." He pulled away, his eyes bright. "You should have told me you were having trouble with a spirit, mate. Didn't you get my email saying I was in town?" He looked up at Naru, his grin turning wry. "At least you got it."

Naru gave him a curt nod. "Thank you for responding."

"Anytime, friend."

Stupified by all the images going through my head, along with the sheer exhilaration of just being alive and waking up to a dear friend, I held out my baby to John.

"Look, John! I made a person!"

This, of course, displeased Eugene greatly, and he sent a yowl at John's face.

John winced, but chuckled. "Yes, you did. A very grouchy person."

"That's how you know he's Naru's."

Everyone laughed. Naru, however, scowled.

"Just feed him already."

 **IMPORTANT! I got the audiobook of Cumin on Youtube up for ya'll. ^.^ I've finished recording all of it, now I've just got to edit it and make it into a format for Youtube to accept. I'll also be looking up sites for fanfiction audiobooks to upload the audio on to there to, for those of you who would rather not have to pull up Youtube to download your books. ^.^ I plan on updating those audiobooks every week, just like I do with my stories on here, so stay tuned! I hope you like it. And I don't think I'm half bad at reading. I use to do it all the time for my siblings and do for my husband now. But if my voice annoys you, let me know so I can find someone else.**


	10. Modern Culture and Babies

**Ugh, I don't do well in heat at all. I want watermelon...*whimpers***

Chapter 9

" _Judgment is a common theme in all the major religions of the world. It is also an intrinsic value to, not just civilization, but human nature. We instinctively judge and desire justice, which is where the knee-jerk want for such things as revenge come from, or the split-second decision to not trust a stranger. It is poor judgment, the misplacement of the role of judge, or the desire to be rid of guilt that brings to pass the stigmatism or desire for a world devoid of good or bad. But it can never be refuted that there is a weight to our choices, and to deny it would be foolish, and possibly dangerous. To deny that there is truth, unchangeable and unaffected by perspective blinds one to any knowledge or forewarning of bad choices. It leaves one lost and directionless, which is often what brings about the phenomenon we call 'ghosts.' Ironically, one does not have to be dead to become one._

 _Some may believe truth infringes on freedom; that you are never truly free until you can make any choice without any poor consequences coming from said choice. But we make choices because of the consequences. We're choosing consequences. And to have good consequences, you must also have bad. Thus, in an ironic turn of events, taking away bad consequences or the opportunity to make said bad choices takes away freedom, because you no longer have the ability to choose between good or bad._

 _...But I digress. My point is one must not deny any soul the freedom to choose, even if that means they may choose poorly. To allow circumstances or certain high-functioning mental conditions to excuse one of the consequences in turn does that person an injustice, because however can they know, then, what consequences they want?_

 _The real problem, then, isn't what justice will do, but who in this world has the burden of bringing about justice? Luckily, most consequences happen on their own, without any outside help. I am endlessly thankful for that."_

 _-_ Oliver Davis in _Plain,_ under a different name

The nurses were right. My nipples did get use to Eugene's sand-paper sucker. It took two weeks, though. Two weeks of crying every time I nursed, two weeks of dabbing gel onto my tortured girls, and two weeks of being woken up every two hours just to be rewarded by my boobs smarting like flesh bags of fireworks as glands squeezed out milk from my soul and grated it out of my nipples. Even once they got use to it, there was still an initial smart in my breasts as the milk glands let loose (if this was what they were made for, what's with the pain?). Oh, and it also hurt when Eugene decided to sleep an extra hour or so and they'd get engorged and leak human boob excretion over everything.

Though it was freaking hilarious that one time in the shower when I was poking one of my heavy laden ladies and it squirted, just like a water gun, into Naru's face. The expression he made by itself almost made the two weeks worth it.

But besides that, I didn't need much to feel happy. Because the satisfaction of being able to feed my baby and hold him as he nursed more than made up for all the 'discomfort,' as the books and nurses will call it. Also, when your baby has no concept of waiting for food and cries like he's going to freaking die unless he gets fed RIGHT NOW, being able to nurse is the best. You just pop one out and done. Since Naru's mother was all for becoming our live in nurse (she only stayed for the two weeks, though she had said it was because Lin had to return back to London for personal reasons), it drove me nuts to listen to Eugene cry as she got a bottle of formula or breast milk I had managed to pump ready. It had to be just the right temperature, no bubbles or clumps, blah blah blah. After I'd caught up on sleep in the first week (sort of, you never really catch up), the bottle ended up unused as I would inevitably grab Eugene and hook him up just to get the crying to stop, even if it meant my own crying would begin, though it was easier to not completely crumble into tears once I'd had some sleep and I wasn't a bloodless, passing out, sweating zombie.

And word to the wise: in-laws are key to survival.

Because if Naru and I had to take care of Eugene while recovering from just giving birth, we'd probably die. As I said before, the kid woke up every two hours, which if you think about where he's coming from (the perfect incubator that was always just the right temperature, always getting food, never having wet diapers), makes sense. Having someone there you know loves your baby probably more than you do at the moment because you've just had your nipples tortured and can't sit right because you have a bloody hole in between your legs from the little sucker and are more sleep deprived than a college student with no money and no caffeine (gasp for air here)...there's no word for it.

In one of the many books Naru read, he learned about how to help an infant settle into sleeping at night better by setting them out in the sunlight or just letting them see the sunlight. It was contrary to what the nurses said about keeping the room dark and comforting like the womb, but, then, Naru was still having many much conflict with the hospital over their bills, one of which was the fact that the doctor still wanted to be paid for delivery when it was technically Naru who had 'delivered' the baby-or so he says. Between you and me, I should be the one paid to deliver, since, you know, I actually pushed the squawking nipple bully out in the first place. Who caught him is merely semantics. But, back to the sunlight, we could already see progress. Eugene was already starting to sleep longer when it was dark and stay awake for longer periods when it was light.

And poor Eugene kept that punched in the face, cone-shaped head, premie downy-fuzz look for a while. It wasn't until a month later that he rounded out, shed the peach fuzz, and developed proper chub rolls.

And I couldn't stand it.

Oh my gosh, it wasn't giving birth that would kill me. It was how beautiful and adorable Eugene was. He was the most remarkable, gorgeous being-thing-subject-I had ever beheld. All his jerky, playful movements, all his gurgling baby noises and squawks, how seriously he met my eyes and quieted at my presence and touch, his dark fluff of silky hair, his fat dimples-I mean, he didn't even have proper wrists or joints, they were just creases that separated rolls of soft, squishy baby chub. His knuckles were just little dips in his round fists, his toes tiny straight jellybeans, his little fingers set with itty bitty fingernails-

 _FOAM!_

That's right. Foam like you have rabies, roll on the floor, flail a bit, and then die, because no one should be able to contain this much overwhelming adoration without exploding in guts.

For the first time in my life, I wanted to catch every minute that passed and hold it tight. I didn't want time to move on. I wanted to savor every second, every new experience, and I lived for showing Eugene everything wonderful and beautiful about being alive: sunshine, Daddies, milk, fuzzy blankets, bells, music, showers, colors, rain, bubbles, kicking, breathing, grapes, brushes, naps, walks in a stroller, being told how much you're loved...

It was like I was experiencing life all over again with him. Things I had long ago stopped thinking about I wondered in, surprised I had ever let a moment go by without appreciating it, because I was re-discovering it with him. Everything was new and exciting. Yeah I was always sleepy, yeah I was sometimes smelly and unwashed, yeah I had to deal with my boobs turning into weepy utters, but that was like complaining of a blister while you're at Disneyland. Yeah, it hurts and sucks, but if you're the kind of person that lets that ruin all those rollercoasters and wondrous rides and snacks and having all your family and friends around you, then you're a petty, shallow, sad person indeed.

Oh, and there was Naru and how adorable he'd become. I didn't have to ask him to help. If he saw something needed to be done, a diaper changed, a bottle made, a baby to be bounced asleep, he just did it.

After a month, we returned to the office with Eugene. While he wasn't doing what I called 'baby yoga' on a fluffy mat on the floor or nursing, he was sleeping against Naru's chest as he did his computer work or walked about the office. Whenever Naru had to do something with both his hands, which wasn't too often, Eugene would be slipped off into a plain old laundry basket behind my desk that had been filled with soft clothes that I had worn so it still smelled of me. When I asked if his arms got tired, he gave me a blank look.

"I'm a man," he said simply, and he left it at that. Though, between you and me, I more or less sexually attacked him when we got home. There's something about not being able to...yeah, I'm going to stop there. Let it suffice that Naru carrying around our sleeping son and saying 'I'm a man' when asked if he could handle it was, ugh, drooooool.

Half-way into the second month of Eugene's life, on a cloudy Wednesday threatening yet another cold autumn day, we had a client in who was college aged. She was attractive and well dressed, though in a way that made it more or less known what kind of attention she was looking for. And, of course, she started drooling the moment Naru came out of his office and sat down in front of her. You'd think the chubby, open-mouthed baby sleeping over his shoulder would have been a romantic deterrent, but, on the contrary.

"Oh my gosh, is that yours?" she asked him, as though Eugene were a fluffy puppy.

"Yes. And he's asleep, so I'd appreciate it if we could keep the volume down."

"Oh. Well, sure, I can do that. Is his mom okay? That's awfully nice of you to bring him to work, I don't know of anywhere that would be okay with babies, that's really rare."

"His mother's right here," I said, trying not to make myself too obvious from my desk. Naru liked to keep the air of privacy to his clients, and on some occasion he'd even have me go into his office-or have me question them, since, as he said, I had a way of softening people that he didn't. It was probably the lack of arrogant intimidation.

She did an odd flinch and squirm. "Hello."

Naru leaned back in the couch, switching hands on Eugene's rump to flip open his black ledger for reference. At first she seemed rather distracted from his questions about the poltergeist activities in her sorority bunk house. I could feel her sizing me up without having to look up from my paperwork. I wondered if she was considering taking my plainness as an invitation to make a move on my husband and tried to decide if I wanted to chuckle, sit back and watch, or be disgusted. After a few questions Naru waved me over to write for him, preferring to have me take notes rather than simply give up the baby to me so he could do it. Cute. I could sense another nigh rape attack coming on when we get home.

"Is that hard?"

Both of us looked at her in confusion. She gestured to Eugene.

"Working and having a baby? Do babies have to be a certain age before you can drop them off at the daycare?"

I sensed an icy prick of Naru's ire, which she would never know of, and decided it best if I answered instead. She wasn't trying to be offensive, it was a natural question to have.

"I've never checked. He is only seven weeks old, so I wouldn't be surprised."

"Seven weeks?" Her eyes went wide. "And he's okay to come out of the house?"

I gave a friendly laugh, though inwardly I was amazed. "Is that what your mother did?"

"I don't know. I'm an only child. But I've heard you have to, like, stay at home for months at a time with them before they can come out. Guess my daycare question was kind of stupid, then..."

I could feel Naru itching to get his questions over and done with. I, however, knew that often times people took tangents like this for reasons that were important to things they may be struggling with that they otherwise wouldn't feel comfortable talking about. Sometimes my intuition in allowing a client to divert the conversation led to insights about the haunting that solved a case. That was probably the only reason why Naru didn't snap at her to stop asking about his private family matters and get back on topic.

"It wasn't stupid," I said kindly. "Babies are a lot more durable than you think. Would you like to hold him?"

Both Naru and the girl gave me looks of alarm.

"No no! I'm fine! I wouldn't want to wake him up," she said, a bit too loudly.

Eugene made little snacking noises as he closed his mouth and lifted his head. I watched on in amusement as our client froze and held her breath until Eugene settled down again with his forehead nuzzled up against his daddy's neck.

She bit her lip before whispering, "I don't think this is very appropriate, talking to a client with a sleeping baby. It puts me on edge, and I don't want the responsibility of keeping him asleep."

I opened my mouth to say it wasn't the end of the world if you woke up a baby, and that Eugene was a heavy sleeper anyways, but Naru carefully bent over so Eugene ended up in his hands with as little shifting as possible and handed him to me. Eugene's little arms and legs splayed out in an adorable, limp doll fashion, and having him close again made it possible for me to hear his almost inaudible, whispery baby snores.

"If you could move his basket into my office," he asked me quietly, not looking at me.

I did so, keeping the door open a crack so I could still feel like I was in the same room as Eugene. Then, somehow not feeling welcome back on the couch with Naru now that he didn't need me for notes, I went to the kitchen to make some tea. For some weird reason, I felt ashamed, but didn't quite understand why.

For the rest of the interview, the girl made attempts to warm up the chill that had settled between her and Naru, as though telling him to get rid of his sleeping baby hadn't been anything wrong, and it hadn't. She was technically right, this was a professional environment. It wasn't like I could stay home with Lin gone, though. I had to do both his and my own work and we had a lot of backlog inquiries to catch up on, not that it was a hassle. I could do paper and computer work and nurse Eugene at the same time, and Naru and I could take turns bouncing him and get stuff done, but...

I dropped off the tea and returned to my desk. I inwardly hoped Eugene stayed asleep and quiet, at least while our client was here. I didn't want to seem anymore unprofessional than she thought I was.

"I can check in on that roommate of yours," he said, snapping his ledger close. "Your payments seems to have checked out alright, so it's just a matter of what day works best for you."

"Saturday works fine, I suppose. Though, if you could not bring your baby..."

While I knew that would be no problem for Naru and I (Monk was always up for using Eugene to try and instill baby hunger into Ayako), and I was actually even more embarrassed she'd even think she'd have to tell us that, Naru asked, "Is there something about your living circumstances I should know about?"

The atmosphere became suddenly brittle.


	11. The Haunt of Conscience

Chapter 10

 _"Religion cannot be evicted by humanity. It always amuses me whenever someone tries, because religion isn't just worship services or saying you believe in a god or even cannabis. It's the organization of beliefs, and every individual has an organized set of beliefs that they use in deciding who they will associate with-who will make up the congregation of their personal church. Whether those beliefs are worthwhile or whether the individual themselves are loyal to them is a different story, and also one of the main reasons for negativity towards the concept of religion. Tolerance of others beliefs isn't just about being okay that someone thinks differently than you, nor is it accepting others beliefs as your own. It's being okay when someone lives their beliefs so well, they remind you how badly you uphold your own._

 _There is no possible way for one to be completely okay with being reminded of their own failure. Rather, tolerance is not attacking another for being exceptional where you are not._

 _Whether or not you decide to change or to better yourself because of that reminder is a different story. But it isn't so far fetch to say that happiness doesn't come with a refusal to change. That is, after all, why some call a refusal to change, to grow, to develop, to repent, damnation._

 _But then the question is: how to change? Not all change is good, after all._

 _And that, friends, is answered by religion."_

 _-_ Oliver Davis in _Plain,_ under a different name

I sensed a tension in the room. Intuition tickled me that something had been hit.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "I didn't offend you or anything, did I? Though I don't know what's so offensive about that, bringing babies to a work site-"

"I'm asking how prevalent drugs are at your home," he said in that tone I knew meant he was utterly unimpressed with someone. I knew it so well because of how often he had used it with me in the beginning. "You have no reason to assume we'd take our baby to a possibly dangerous site of a haunting, and even if we did bring him, most people wouldn't think much of someone carrying a baby while asking a college student some questions. Not that it is unorthodox for you to be a bit uncomfortable, but I would like to be reassured that the reason isn't because of drug abuse."

Her shoulders hunched a bit, bunching her long, bleached hair into little arcs. "What, are you the narc police or something? Not that it matters, there aren't drugs in our house, no way."

My intuition binged. I didn't believe her. And even if I did, a part of me wondered if she'd even care if a baby were exposed to it. Suddenly, I felt very unnerved by this girl, though I shook it off. I was being extremely judgmental and paranoid. Just because she was afraid to wake up the baby didn't mean she, what, didn't like kids? Must be my new mama nerves. Definitely that.

"It's a college sorority," Naru said. "It was stupid of me to ask. I never take my son onto sites anyways. I am, after all, a professional. You should know, having no job whatsoever. Makes me wonder how you can afford to pay for a paranormal investigator and why. As far as I can tell, your parents don't approve of the paranormal, so it's not like they'd pay."

The temperature of the room plummeted.

I shrunk from my peeping corner and back into the kitchen and face palmed.

 _Way to go on not being completely offensive._ Sometimes I wondered if that man's comprehension of social decorum wasn't fully developed.

There was a stillness before she asked, her tone a new kind of quiet, "How do you know that?"

"It's nothing special. I am currently in the middle of the application process of teaching at Tokyo University and I happened to meet your father, who didn't especially approve of the universities choice to add psychic and paranormal curriculum to the science department. A Dr. Yusmishi, if I'm correct."

By the time Naru had wound up his Sherlocky 'ho ho, look at me, I got one up on you,' the girl had warmed up enough to inject indignation into her tone.

I peeked back out, just in case I needed to jump out and smooth things over, which was looking imminent.

"Why does it matter how I'm paying you? I don't get where-this is so inappropriate-"

"Because I don't think you're just here to get rid of a few bumps in the night." Naru leaned forward, folding his hands between his knees. His eyebrows had lowered, his dark eyes gone piercing. "You want to clear your conscience."

I expected her to shoot up and fire Naru then and there. Yes, Naru was often uncaring to the more sensible loops most of us jumped through to keep the peace, but he always managed to be respectful of the client, if not keep his tongue in check. Then again, it wasn't like we needed this client, right? And if she was getting money through means that might hurt her...

She didn't jump up. Her shoulders rose, and her back hunched towards the back of the couch, as though to brace her.

"I had an abortion," she whispered.

Naru raised an eyebrow, and the girl visibly cringed, hiding behind her long hair.

"Okay, I had a few. But I was told it wasn't a big deal, that I was being smart, that babies take a lot of time and you have to be ready for them and it wouldn't be fair to bring them into the world when you're not ready for them-"

"People always try to justify what is wrong," he said, a bit more gently this time.

"B-b-but I didn't want a baby, I had birth control, it was just a mistake-I think they're haunting my dorm. My roommate got one too, she thinks so too, that their unborn souls are haunting us because we're their murderers and-" her words were speeding up, blending, and she wasn't pausing to breathe. "And I keep waking up and hearing baby crying and have these horrible nightmares and the banging and the doors closing and then this book fell when it wasn't suppose to at all and-"

I had reached the couch by then and put a hand on her shoulder. "Breathe!"

She gasped, then broke into a dry, strangled sob.

"I didn't think they were babies-I never wanted a baby, it was just a-they said it would be okay, that I was being smart, doing the right thing-" She curled over her lap, face in her hands. "Help me. Help me, please."

For a moment, Naru said nothing, watching the crumpled girl as she shook with sobs and me rubbing her back in an attempt to comfort her. I couldn't read his expression, but I could somehow get a sense of what he must be feeling. It reminded me of something he had said back in a hospital basement, about good and bad and evil. Something about evil not being the Saturday morning villain, but that it was pitiful. That evil was the wound on another's soul. There was no cackling or laughing, most of the time. Mostly, there was just suffering.

When Naru stood, I half suspected that he would go back to his office and have me finish with this girl. Comforting wasn't his strong suit, and he would probably worry he'd just make it worse. Instead, he came to her side of the coffee table and picked up her untouched cup of tea. I moved my hands as she sat up to see what he offered her.

"You'll figure this out, if you want to," he said. "Nothing is more powerful than the human will. I can help with the haunting, but first you need to tell me how you're paying for this."

She sniffed. "I-I can't tell you that."

"Is it hurting you?"

"Depends."

"Well, it won't matter how many times a home is purified if an individual doesn't purify themselves. Ghosts are just people, after all, and birds of a feather flock together." He leaned back to grab his black folder and pulled out a business card from one of the pockets. "Here's the contact information of a friend of mine. If you're not willing to talk to me about it, you can talk to him. He'd probably do better at it anyways."

She wiped at her nose with her hand and squinted at the card. "A priest? Are you trying to shove religion down my throat?"

"Do you even know what religion is?"

"God and morals and stuff-"

"As I thought. You don't." He set the tea on her lap for her to catch and stood. "If that's all, I will be at your sorority house two on Saturday."

With that, he did his 'I'm professional and triumphant and wise and not fleeing' run for his office, where, after closing the door, he probably got Eugene back up on his chest for comfort. So much emotional contact frightened the poor guy, after all.

Meanwhile, I got the girl a handkerchief. I didn't need to see the card to know who was on it.

"Father Brown is a very good friend of mine," I said, squeezing her shoulder. "He's saved my life on more than one occasion."

She snorted. "What, he bring you to God?"

"Nope. He saved my life literally. He's a good man with a lot of compassion. And for the record, I'm not a baptized Catholic, so you don't have to convert to work with him."

"He's just going to say a load of junk like pray and repent." She blew her nose. "There's no going back on aborting a pregnancy. It's just done."

"You haven't even talked to him. I thought you said you wanted help. What were you expecting? Flashing lights and voodoo? And that's easier for you to handle than just talking to someone who happens to be a priest?"

She said nothing at this. I did get my hand off her in case things got awkward and went around to pick up Naru's tea cup. Of course, his was empty. Never one to waste, the tea addict.

A snuffling mewl came from behind the office door. Daddy must not have picked up Eugene as smooth as he wanted.

The girl stood up sharply. "I better go. Thanks."

I picked up the card she left on the table. "Don't forget this. Trust us on this." I gave her my best reassuring smile. "Everything's going to be okay."

She stared at the card for a second before taking it and putting it in her pant pocket. Without looking at me, she grabbed her purse and left.

 **And there you have it! Thank you to the guest reviewer who left me a review entirely in Spanish. I had to use Google translate, but hey, the message got across. To anyone who has problems with reading about childbirth or motherhood-grow up.**

 **Now! This will probably be the last of this series. I hope you all liked it, and thank you so much for all your reviews! They were a delight to read. ^.^ Let me know if there is anything I can do for you.**


	12. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

 **Author's Intro/Gift:**

 **Since it's lame to give you all an announcement without a story update, I offer you this little epilogue to Boon!**

 **Why the announcement? Today I release the first book in a series of inexpensive Kindle books that I've started to help put food on the table LITERALLY, as in I'm having a hard time paying for food and the basics. If you can, please drop by and pick up a copy of it.**

 **It's titled "Wendy" and you can find it on Amazon under the pen name T.S. Lowe. I've put a synopsis at the end of this chapter.**

 **Now I'll get out of your way...**

The digital clock glowed 2:20am, and pale street light shone through the cracks in the curtain. Our bed had been mussed, and I couldn't remember the last time it had been made. I didn't want to be in the doorway, looking in at the bed and Naru's shirtless figure leaning his face into his hands.

But Eugene was crying. My baby was crying, and I could hear the pain in his wails with the ultra sensitivity of a mother.

"I can't do it," I croaked. "I've—I've done everything I can think of."

"Does he have a fever?" Naru asked quietly.

"No. And he won't eat either. I've bounced him and sung to him and walked with him…"I couldn't speak anymore, as great, heavy sobs took up my throat. It didn't pass by me how strange it was that the world was ending because I had gone beyond exhaustion as I'd never known and I couldn't help my baby. It consumed me. It pushed me to the floor and against the wall, where I curled up near the doorframe.

It was proof of how far gone Naru was too, as he didn't comment on my distress, not even to tell me I was being over dramatic. He just got out of the bed and crouched down to hug me. The hug moved to my knees and back and he lifted me with a grunt back onto the bed.

"I'll take over," he said.

"But—but—" but Naru had even less experience with babies than me. Some crazed fear born of my worn mama nerves and sleep-flayed brain cells started yipping about Naru losing his cool and flipping out at Eugene—or worse, just leaving him to flail and cry alone, like I had just done.

I jumped out of bed and fluttered towards the doorway, ruining Naru's efforts. He had already turned back to the room once taken by Lin, but had now been turned into a nursery of turtles and owls. It glowed a soft green from the turtle night light.

In a crib, beneath a mobile of owls and stars, Eugene screamed with every muscle of his little body. The green light canceled out what I knew to be a brilliantly scarlet face.

"I can—" I started, but Naru was already picking him up.

"Go back to bed," he said, hanging the momentarily surprised Eugene on his forearm, belly down. For a glorious few seconds of quiet, Eugene's big dark eyes stared at the floor, chubby cheek pressed against the side of his father's elbow. Then the crying started up again, albeit not with so much vigor. It was a bit harder for Eugene to use the rest of his body in hefting screams when on his belly and having his back pat by a hand nearly the same size as it.

"Like I'd be able to sleep," I said, pressing more tears out from my eyes. They had puffed up to the point I didn't feel the tears until I couldn't see and had to squeeze them out, like my eyelids had turned to sponges.

"Then do what you want, but I'm taking a turn."

Naru walked out into the living room. I followed after him like the many waifs we had studied in days gone. He opened up the blinds onto the cityscape and took to pacing in front of it, patting Eugene's back and humming. It took me some time of trembling, tear oozing listening on the couch to recognize the song from a utility closet in a mansion, where a Kuman Thong slept. Even sleep deprived as he was, Naru was perfectly in tune, though his notes slurred and jumped.

"Is this ever going to end?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said, which would have surprised me in any other circumstance.

"Should we take him to the hospital?"

"If he doesn't have a fever, there isn't much that could warrant that. Has he thrown up or anything?"

"No. He hasn't anything to do so. The moment he latches on, he snaps off and starts screaming again."

"The nurse did say sometimes they just have to cry."

I whimpered. "But does it have to be in the middle of the night? I'm such a horrible mom," and I topped it off with a very long, adult-like "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah."

As I stopped to breathe, I caught a ragged intake of breath from Naru. I squinted through my puff eyes enough to see that his cheeks shimmered from the city night lights. He was crying?

I didn't ask if he was okay. None of us were okay. Nothing was okay. Nothing was ever going to be okay again.

Naru kept pacing. Eugene hung on his daddy's arm, wailing with cruel abandon. I started rocking. The clock on the DVD player hit three. Then went after three. I could hear Eugene's cries turn to pleading as exhaustion settled in.

"Maybe we should take his temperature again," said Naru, around 3:15.

"It's on the counter." I had left it out after taking it for the uptenth time.

Naru and Eugene left the window. I didn't follow. I just stared out, wondering if it would be kosher to lay on the floor and die. That wouldn't be so bad, right? I'd had enough experience to know sort of what death would be like.

The thermometer beeped. Naru flicked on the light above the stove to squint at the numbers. Then he returned to the window, Eugene switched to his other arm.

Eugene had just given his first, renewed squall on his unsobbed on Daddy arm when it happened.

The loud, unmistakable gurgle of poop.

Naru froze as Eugene's crying abruptly cut off to be replaced by continuing gurgly pops. It just wasn't physically possible for such a little body to poop so loudly, and so long.

When it finally ended, Eugene gave a relieved, happy little sigh.

Both of us exploded into hysterical laughter. Naru didn't even move from the window to get a new diaper or wipes. He just leaned his shoulder against the glass weakly, laughing so hard I could definitely tell he was crying just as hard as I was.

"Don't—don't just—stand there," I wheezed. "You're gonna get poop all over your arm."

"Already do," he gasped. "Good Lord, all that drama."

Eugene just gave another sigh, along with a tiny, baby "Ahhh."

That did us over. By the time we finally managed to get Eugene into the nursery for the inevitable butt wiping, both of us were cramping and permanently doubled over from laughing. Eugene got impatient with his pathetic parents and started whimpering for food, so Naru did as quick of work as he could of ground zero.

This time, Eugene latched on and started feeding so eagerly, he slurped and got milk all over his cheek.

"I hurt," I said. I had managed to fall down into the rocking chair and was fighting to keep my brain as clear as possible.

"I'm go to sleeping," Naru managed, an arm around his middle. "Like the dead."

Another fit of unhealthy chortling came over us, and I could hear him giggling like that all the way back to the bed. Really, I wouldn't have laughed so hard if Naru hadn't, because honestly, hearing the cool, aloof Naru giggle was perhaps just as extraordinary as Eugene's nuclear poop.

This must be what it's like to be drunk, I thought. I bet this is what he'd be like if he was drunk.

An idea for another time.

 **"Wendy" synopsis:**

 _Wendy knows she tends to be a mother hen to her friends. But if she doesn't, who will? Her boys are lost from their parents in more ways then one, especially the mysterious Kolya, who awkwardly befriended them after fleeing the Russian mafia. She almost wishes he hadn't when she finds herself on the end of what must be a one-sided love. After all, why would the cool, handsome, aloof Kolya have any interest in a nagging she-man like her?_

 _But when Kolya's past catches up with them, getting rid of an unwanted crush will be the last thing on Wendy's mind._

 **You get a book and I get milk. You don't get me milk, and you still get an extra chapter of your favorite story.**


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